Surface
by Jessa4865
Summary: Jack and Sam learn that things are not always the way they seem. COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

Surface  
Jezyk  
Spoilers: Anything up to Season 7 is fair game.  
Disclaimer: Not mine.  
Sam/Jack… like always.

Chapter One

The colonel was bored. She could tell, even though he was doing his damnedest to look interested in what she was saying. She wanted to hug him for it. The idea was hardly foreign to her, but she hadn't been expecting it to strike her just then. Her techno babble faltered mid-stream, leaving her smiling stupidly at her CO. Sometimes she couldn't believe she got to work with a man that handsome every day of her life.

As further proof he wasn't listening, he hadn't noticed the abruptness of her silence. He nodded slowly, his forehead wrinkling in deep thought while he tried to figure out what to say. Eventually he smiled at her. "Don't turn it on, Carter." He turned away then, milling about the large alien room and trying to act like her adoring gaze didn't affect him places the adoring gaze of a second-in-command shouldn't affect a CO.

Carter grinned, the thrill of his smile, aimed only at her, outweighing the disappointment that he hadn't gotten anything at all out of her words. She turned back to the devices they'd found, deciding it was good that he trusted her enough that he didn't need to understand her. That way his behavior was complimentary rather than insulting.

Even without Carter and Daniel's assessment, Jack had reached the conclusion they had discovered a lab of some sort. Carter's idea of heaven, but not his. "I'll be back." She didn't look up. He shook his head as he walked away. He wasn't the only one who didn't always listen.

Jack wandered out of the room, which held enough otherworldly gizmos to keep Carter entertained for the rest of her natural life, knowing she'd be too busy playing to keep him company or to even notice his absence. He felt more productive as he poked around the complex, making sure it was a deserted as it appeared. After completing his sweep of the area, he radioed Teal'c, checking in with the other half of his team.

Daniel had found some fascinating something or other and tried to get Jack interested enough to follow. Jack sent Teal'c in his place and chose to keep Carter company for the afternoon. Teal'c was often helpful with Daniel's translations and got less annoyed with the linguist for his occasionally excessive babbling. Plus, for the previous couple of days, Jack and Carter had been getting along particularly well - not that they didn't usually get on well, but recently, Jack felt a rekindling of their flirtatious relationship. He'd caught her staring at him several times and when he smiled, she'd blush and look away. So he couldn't pass up the opportunity to be alone with her, even if she was in her happy little science place with her precious alien whatchamacallits.

He made his way back to the lab. Carter was sitting on a stool, surrounded by wires and disassembled pieces of the toy she'd been examining when he left. She was leaning in close to part of it, biting her lip and squinting as she concentrated fully on it. As he'd suspected, she didn't look up when he returned. She didn't appear to have noticed that he'd left.

Unable to resist, he crept up behind her. He moved quickly, placing his hands on the counter on either side of her and leaning in until his lips almost brushed her ear. "Carter!"

She jumped in shock and, for one glorious minute, she pressed her back against his chest, ready to fight. His hands left the counter, moving to her hips to help steady her, to keep her from falling, and, just a little bit, to enjoy a moment when their physical contact was completely unprofessional.

"Sir, you scared me!" Her adrenaline response was waning, but she remained where she was against him. He grinned when she realized she was still leaning on him. She turned around slightly to glare at him, her eyes going wide when she saw how close he was. And he was laughing. She pulled away, smacking one of his hands on her hip. "Jerk."

He withdrew his hands, knowing he'd pushed it as far as he could. "You should be a little more observant off-world, Carter. It could have been a goa'uld who jumped you."

"I would have sensed a goa'uld, sir." She turned back to the equipment before her. Jack retreated to the other side of the room, telling himself he shouldn't be that excited over such a chaste touch.

"Besides, sir, I thought I was safe with you." She met his eyes and they both knew she wasn't mad at all that he'd taken advantage of the rare opportunity to touch her.

"Carter, I've been gone for a half hour." He'd had time to check out the building and talk to Teal'c and she'd never looked up.

She looked around and he knew she'd been so wrapped up in her investigation that she'd had no idea where she was for quite a while. "Oh." She frowned. She didn't like being wrong. "You should have told me you were leaving."

He grinned again, loving the way she got flustered when he teased her. "I did."

She blushed and ducked her chin, realizing he had every right to reprimand her and being grateful that he hadn't. Of course, she knew it wasn't a good idea to comment on the fact that he'd decided to feel her up instead. "Did Daniel find anything of value, sir?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "He found something; however, its value remains to be seen."

She looked guiltily at the pieces before her. She knew he probably hadn't intended it, but his words hit home, reminding her that she was having fun playing with no regard for their objective. She hadn't yet found anything of military or strategic value herself, but rather than admitting it, she was stalling while she analyzed the alien power design.

Jack checked his watch and smiled reassuringly. He didn't care if Carter did the same thing. He found her hopelessly endearing when she was enthralled with things she didn't understand. As long as no one was shooting at them, he could let the kids play. "We've got some time, Carter. Knock yourself out. Just don't turn it on."

She grinned at him and buried her nose in her work. Jack puttered around the lab, gazing at and occasionally playing with the objects on the shelf against the opposite wall. He reached for one, a small, shiny cube, but it was heavier than it looked. It slid from his fingers and landed on the metal shelf with a thud.

"Try not to break anything, sir."

He looked up at the small mirror on the wall, a smirk in place for her if she happened to be looking up. He couldn't even see her at all, so he turned around. She was grinning, pleased with herself for getting him to look at her. "Yes, ma'am."

He turned back to the mirror, running his hands through his hair. It was getting too long already. He sighed; he'd just gotten it cut the week prior. Jack wasn't the vain type, so his reflection held little amusement for him. He shifted to the right slightly, attempting to see Carter, wanting to watch her. She was so beautiful when she got lost in projects. He loved to stare at her when he could get away with it. He couldn't see her, so he adjusted the mirror to catch her reflection. He still couldn't see her. He turned around to check on her.

She had moved to the floor; the pieces she'd been working with were once again assembled into something. And it was glowing. Jack ignored the absolutely adorable baffled look on her face. Jack ignored the unbelievably quick, silent way she'd moved from her stool to the floor. He was too angry to comment on anything pleasant.

"Carter, I just told you not to turn it on."

She looked up at him, obvious annoyance reflected in both her tone and her face. "No, you didn't."

He stared in shock. No sir. No smile. No respect. It had been cute moments earlier when she denied having heard his comment about leaving, but she'd been looking right at him when he'd told her not to turn it on. His forehead creased as her looked at her. "Yes, I did."

She rolled her eyes as she climbed back to her perch at the counter. "Whatever you say, Jack." Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

He narrowed his eyes at her. He didn't usually throw his rank in her face, but then she didn't usually disrespect him. "Turn it off, Major."

"Yes, sir." She sighed unhappily, but flipped a switch and the device stopped glowing.

He felt slightly better since glowing things tended to freak him out. Irritated, he turned away. He didn't know what had happened. Everything had been fine a moment earlier. He pretended to fiddle with the things on the counter. But he was glancing up, eyeing her in the mirror. She'd once again spread the pieces out on the counter and was working away with a small smile playing on her lips.

She glanced up at him, her eyes warming when they met his. Her smile widened and she blushed once again. His brow furrowed in confusion. He'd never known Carter to have mood swings; when she was happy or angry, she generally stayed that way. He looked back at his reflection and promptly realized that he looked like an idiot when he was confused. He turned away.

"Come on, Carter, time to go." He expected an argument, but he wasn't going to listen. His mood had turned sour and he wanted to get away from her before she got mad again because he didn't want to start fighting with her. Not when they'd been getting along so well.

"What about this?" She was zipping her pack closed, apparently willing to follow orders once again, nodding toward the counter.

"Bring it, as long as it's turned off." He led the way out of the room, without even noticing that her toy was once again assembled into one piece.


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: Bear with me and you'll get less confused (although part three is sure to confuse the holy living crap out of you). Trust me. :) _

Chapter Two

Daniel was not a happy camper when Jack demanded that he return without explanation. Jack watched as Daniel approached Carter, quietly asking her what happened. Carter only rolled her eyes in response.

"Carter!" Jack had never seen Carter acting as obviously insolent as he'd seen her being twice in five minutes. She looked mad, which he couldn't reconcile with the warmth he'd seen in her eyes when she'd smiled at him a few minutes previously. "What the hell is your problem, Carter?"

She glanced at Daniel before somehow managing to look even more pissed off. "What the hell is yours?"

He'd had it. She never challenged him like that, not in such a rude manner and certainly not in front of other people. He stepped in front of her, fury barely restrained in him. "Snap to, Major!"

Anger flashed in her eyes, but she immediately came to attention.

He hated that what he'd considered a perfectly wonderful afternoon had gone to hell. "If I hear one more thing out of you besides yes sir and no sir, I'm going to write you up. Is that clear, Major?"

"Yes, sir." The fury in her eyes mirrored his own and he had no idea what caused it, especially since she'd been angry before he dressed her down.

He stared at her for a long moment, finding nothing but coldness staring back at him. "Do you have anything else to say?"

She narrowed her eyes, obviously not about to fall for a trick. "No, sir."

"Good." He turned away from her and dialed the gate.

But even as the wormhole roared to life, he clearly heard Carter's retort. "Don't even think about coming over tonight."

Jack spun around in horror. He couldn't have possibly heard her correctly. But judging from the way Daniel was studying his shoes and Teal'c was looking embarrassed, he knew she'd said exactly what he'd thought. It disturbed him that neither of his friends seemed particularly shocked by her implication. He leaned into her face, unsure why she would say such a thing. "Do we have some sort of plans that I've forgotten about?"

"No, sir." She winced from his proximity and his harsh tone, but she stood her ground. "Not that that's ever stopped you before."

His eyes widened. "What the hell are you talking about?" He turned around and glared at Daniel and Teal'c, who suddenly seemed amused by Carter's little fantasy world. "Never mind. I don't want to know. As soon as we get back, you're getting your head examined and I swear to God if there isn't a damn good explanation for this, I'm writing your ass up!" He angrily pressed his code into the GDO so hard his fingers hurt.

"If you dare, I assure you that's the last of my ass you'll ever get, Jack."

Daniel snickered. Teal'c tried to hide it, but he was laughing too. Jack wanted to kill all three of them. "I'm not amused, Major." He didn't know what to make of Carter, so he turned on his friends. "I'm not sleeping with her." Neither of them appeared even remotely convinced. "What the hell is the matter with you, Carter?"

She didn't answer. He was about to repeat himself, to demand she make some sort of excuse for her behavior, but his radio interrupted with a hold signal from the base. Thankful for something to concentrate on besides Carter's attitude problem, he grabbed his radio and shouted into it, not caring if everyone knew something was wrong. "What the hell is the problem?"

General Hammond's voice sounded back through. "Colonel O'Neill, what is your status?"

"We're trying to come back, but we're not getting clearance."

"Colonel, please re-enter your iris code."

The scene between them all was forgotten as worried looks passed among them. It wasn't often that they got a hold signal, and they'd never once been denied entrance for an invalid code. Jack punched in his code again, pressing the keys lightly. Even while he did it, he tried to find a hidden message in the general's word that might indicate a situation of some sort. Jack wondered if he was trying to warn them off.

It took longer than normal for the base to respond and Jack knew that wasn't a good sign. Walter's voice sounded concerned. "Colonel, you do not have clearance. Please stand by."

Jack looked at Carter, who looked less angry and more apologetic. She spoke into her radio, attempting to cover for him. "Sir, the colonel hasn't been out of my sight the entire time we've been here. Sending iris code." Her fingers flew across the keypad nimbly.

A moment later, Walter's voice rang out. "SG-1, you are clear to return."

Daniel and Teal'c headed back first. Carter glanced at Jack and smiled. "You must have been pretty upset to have forgotten your iris code."

He took a step toward the gate, wanting as much space between him and the rapid-fire mood swings of his second. "I didn't forget it, Carter. That's my code." It had been weeks since he'd gotten a new one and he made a mental note to verify it as soon as he got back. "Maybe the GDO is broken."

Carter stepped up next to him as they climbed the steps to the gate. Her hand brushed his just as they were stepping through.

He turned to face her once they were safely back in Cheyenne Mountain. "Carter, what are you doing?"

She offered him another tiny smile. "We can talk about it later, Jack."

"Jack? What the fuck?" He stared after her dumbfounded as she disappeared down the hall.

General Hammond was in the control room, staring down at him. "Colonel, as soon as you get clearance from medical, I expect you to have a damn good explanation for forgetting your iris code. You damn well could have gotten your team killed."

After a perfectly unremarkable physical and a painfully long debriefing where the general quite thoroughly embarrassed him, Jack hid out in the locker room. He took a long, hot shower, giving up on trying to wrap his brain around the events of the day. He wanted to go home, knock back a couple of beers, and find some mind-numbing news program to lull him to sleep. He stepped out of the shower, dressed quickly and ran his fingers through his hair. It felt odd to him and he looked in the mirror. It was still cropped close to his head and he wondered where he'd ever gotten the idea that it was getting long.

He shook his head and decided he was going insane. He would put off dealing with Carter until the morning. Hopefully whatever she was dealing with would work itself out. Besides, he rationalized, talking to her while she was acting strangely was just going to make him even more nuts.

He was thinking about her behavior, especially the way she'd lied to the general about him never leaving her sight on the planet, as he shut his locker. He shook his head again and turned to leave.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he found a smirking Carter leaning against the door.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he watched her turn the lock on the door.

He cleared his throat. "Carter, this is the men's locker room."

She grinned as she took her time looking him up and down. He suddenly wished his jeans were a little looser when he saw the appreciative gleam in her eyes. "You never minded before."

"Before when?" He felt his feet involuntarily slide backwards when she pushed herself off the door and started moving towards him. He was dazed and she was on a mission, so she closed the distance before he got far, not that he had far to go before he backed into the showers, which he realized probably weren't a good place to be with psycho Carter. Her hands reached up to grab the lapels of his jacket. "Carter?" Was that his voice? He couldn't be sure because it sounded like Peter Brady.

She grinned as she pressed her body closer to his. "Yes, sir?" The evil glint in her eyes convinced him she fully expected his response at his words.

He wanted to be angry, or at the very least concerned, but his body was overruling his brain for the moment and his body was very much enjoying the idea that Carter had backed him into the lockers and was pressing herself against him. He could feel every inch of her against him and it made him lightheaded. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not mad anymore." She nuzzled his neck which just about sapped the last of his strength. "I forgive you. Can we go home now?"

He leaned down to look at her, to try to confirm that the creature evoking those unbelievable sensations in his body was truly Carter, but as he looked down, she leaned up, capturing his lips in a deep, searing kiss. When his brain started working again, he was quite pleased that she wasn't mad anymore.

Until he remembered that he was the one who was mad at her. And that Carter had only accosted him once before, coincidentally also in the locker room, and it hadn't exactly been her then. He tried to push her away, only succeeding in getting his hands on her hips before she started sucking on the skin below his ear. His head fell back against the lockers, the pain not even registering. "Jesus, Carter."

She laughed softly as she continued to kiss his neck. "Of course we could always stay here, Jack." Her hand brushed against his neck, exactly the way he liked. He had no idea how she knew exactly what drove him crazy, but lord help him, she did.

He turned his face into her hair, inhaling the scent of her deeply. He wanted her so badly that every part of him was desperate to give in. Her hands moved to pull his shirt loose from his pants.

The touch of her cool hands on his overheated skin shocked him back to his right mind. What she was doing, what he was allowing her to do, was wrong. He was sure of one thing as his hands shoved her hips away from his - she wasn't Samantha Carter.


	3. Chapter 3

_AN: Nice long part for you... enjoy!_

Chapter Three

Carter was fiddling happily with her toy. She had yet to find a use for it, but the puzzling process of disassembling it had been fun. As had the little interlude into impropriety where she and Jack had flirted shamelessly. All in all, she was extraordinarily pleased with her life at that moment.

Until Jack barked at her. "What's taking so long?"

Stunned, she looked up at her CO. Gone were the soft smile and warm eyes. The colonel looked hard and angry. "Sir?"

He folded his arms across his chest, giving her the impression that he had reached the limits of his patience, except that he rarely got that way at all and never with her. Daniel was usually the one who annoyed Jack into being short-tempered, which Carter figured was the reason he'd stayed with her and sent Teal'c with Daniel.

Jack took a deep breath. "Does that damn thing work yet, Carter?"

She hid her dismay by looking at the scattered pieces before her. "I don't know. I don't even know what it's supposed to do."

He checked his watch. "Two minutes, Carter. If you can't turn it on in two minutes, we're leaving it."

"You told me not to turn it on, sir." She was more perturbed by his attitude than she normally would have been since they'd been getting along so well.

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

He approached the counter, slamming his hands down so hard that it shook. "I think I would know if I told you not to turn it on."

Carter was more upset at Jack's sudden aggression than she let him see. It was one of those things she'd learned in her time in the military - risk assessment. Whenever she met someone, she always took a careful inventory to see if she could take them in a fight. She'd always known that Jack was quite strong and well trained in hand-to-hand, so she'd taken comfort in the fact that she absolutely knew he would never turn that strength and skill on her. He never got angry with her - frustrated, yes, but never angry. Until then.

Her voice was soft, unsure, as she responded and she hated that he'd scared her and that her weak voice revealed that. "You said we had time, sir."

He stared at her, his harsh glare softening the slightest bit at her obvious discomfort, although it was still harsh enough to cause her to squirm. "Are you questioning my orders, major?"

"No, sir."

"Two minutes."

She looked down, working as quickly as possible to fit the pieces of the object back together. She knew it was no use. She'd done too thorough a job in taking it apart. There was no way to get it back and operational in two minutes and Jack didn't appear to be in the mood to be rational. She didn't want to test him just then. Unzipping her pack, she shoved the pieces inside. "Ready, sir." One thing she'd learned in the years she'd known him was that it was best to let Jack get out of his moods on his own. There was no point in trying to reason with him when he was like that.

He had been watching her the whole time, so she didn't know why he was asking. "Does it work?"

She didn't like his attitude or not knowing why he was so mad. She wanted to be snippy back, but she knew better. Jack was her CO and that was one thing he'd remember clearly even when he was pissed off. She told herself he was panicking and backpedaling for having been so unprofessional with her, but she still saw no reason for him to blame her for it. He had been the one to grab her and whisper in her ear.

She bent down to re-tie her shoe, taking the opportunity to roll her eyes when he couldn't see. "It's small enough to transport. I'll have more time to study it once I get it home."

"Assuming you get clearance to bring it back on base."

"Of course, sir." She couldn't believe the accusation in his voice. She'd never smuggled anything on base; she'd never even thought about doing such a thing.

He stared her down, speaking on when she lowered her eyes. "If you want to be a bitch and give me shit at home, fine, whatever. Don't bring it to work, Carter." He stormed out of the lab, leaving her to stare after him.

A gruff Colonel O'Neill dragged an unwilling Teal'c and Daniel back and ordered Daniel to dial them home. While Daniel was dialing and Jack was sulking, Teal'c hung back with Carter.

"Are you feeling well, Major Carter?" His soft voice was laced with concern. It was so welcome that Carter nearly hugged him for it.

Instead she shrugged. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Your face is quite red. Are you certain you are well?"

Reaching up and feeling her burning cheeks with her palms, Carter realized it was obvious to everyone that she was angry. "I'm fine, Teal'c. It's the colonel who's upset." What she didn't need to say was that the symbiotic relationship of the team meant that the colonel's upset quickly translated into a team upset.

"O'Neill is indeed in a foul mood. Has there been an occurrence to cause this?"

"I don't think so." She shrugged again, noticing the colonel's dark stare was fixed on her once again. "But apparently something happened."

Everyone turned at Jack's disbelieving snort. "Something changed all right. You've been a royal bitch for two days and have said a word to me. Now all of a sudden everything's fine."

"Sir?" She didn't know what to say, how to dispute something that was so blatantly untrue.

Luckily, Daniel stopped mid-dial and gaped at Jack. "She was talking to you this morning, Jack. You two were getting along pretty well when you were gazing into each other's eyes during the briefing."

Carter's mouth dropped open in shock. Not only couldn't she believe Daniel had said that, she hadn't realized how obvious they were. If Daniel had noticed, certainly the general had noticed. She wanted to disappear. She hadn't wanted to stare at him at the time, but once she'd caught his eyes she hadn't been able to turn away.

"I was not gazing at her this morning." For a brief moment, Jack's anger shifted onto Daniel. "We've been fighting for two days, Daniel."

Daniel and Teal'c both turned to Carter, each one thinking maybe she knew something they didn't. She didn't.

"If you're angry at me, sir, I'm sorry. I have no idea what I've done to upset you." She hated how pitiful her words sounded. "I haven't been fighting with you, sir. Maybe you've been fighting with me, but I don't know why."

Jack rolled his eyes at all of them. "This is exactly why officers in the same chain of command aren't supposed to sleep together."

Carter actually squeaked. "What?"

Once again, Daniel and Teal'c turned to look at her and she got the distinct impression that they believed the colonel's cruel words over her utter shock.

Gaining control over herself and the hurt she felt, she narrowed her eyes. "If you ever make a comment like that to or about me again I will bring sexual harassment charges against you." She was furious. All the respect she'd earned in her career could be destroyed with a few words, especially coming from her CO.

Jack just smiled. "It'll be hard to prove sexual harassment from someone you're sleeping with."

"What's wrong with you? Why are you saying this stuff?" She didn't care anymore if he was her CO. He was hurting her, mortifying her, and worse, he was cheapening the feelings she thought they had for one another.

Jack motioned between Daniel and Teal'c. "You think they don't know? Come on, Carter, they're not stupid."

For their part, Daniel and Teal'c had chosen to move closer to one another, away from the fireworks. Teal'c, however, attempted to break it up. "Perhaps you should continue this discussion in a more personal setting." Daniel just wanted to hide and so finished dialing the gate.

Jack turned away, practically stomping toward the gate while he entered his IDC.

Carter stood exactly where she was, wanting alternately to kill him or cry. She took heart in the fact that Jack had obviously gotten so upset that he mixed up his code. She hoped it was guilt that was making him forget as she reached for her radio to assure the SGC it was really them. "General Hammond, the colonel appears to be having difficulty with his GDO. I'll use mine."

Carter had to suck it up and be in the same room with Jack through their post-mission physicals and the briefing, neither of which were as succinct as normal after Jack's forgetfulness. After Jack lied and said he was never out of her sight, she had to correct him, reminding him of his sweep of the complex.

"He said he'd been gone for nearly thirty minutes, sir." Carter actually felt slightly guilty herself when the red-faced general realized he'd been lied to.

"Carter!" Jack looked positively stupefied at her words. "That's not true, sir!"

For once, Carter completely forgot about their ranks and lashed out. "If you want me to cover for you, maybe you shouldn't spread lies about me."

"For crying out loud, Carter, I haven't said one God damn thing that wasn't completely true." He looked even madder than he had before. And Carter couldn't help but think he absolutely believed what he was saying.

The general cleared his throat, reminding them that they were hardly in the private setting Teal'c had suggested for the discussion to continue. "Considering that Major Carter's iris code cleared, I'm inclined to believe her. However, with no one available to corroborate either of your statements, I'm confining both of you to the base until Dr. Fraiser assures me that both of you are fine."

Carter spent the evening hiding out in her lab. She concentrated on reassembling the object to keep away any thoughts about what Jack had said. He'd hurt her and for no apparent reason. Despite her best efforts, tears pricked her eyes as she worked.

"Carter?"

She looked up, unsure how to feel upon seeing her CO. She decided on wary and it reflected in her voice. "Yes, sir?"

He leaned against the wall on the far side of the room, which was about as far away as he could be and still be in the lab. She found she much preferred it that way. His arms hung limply at his sides; his eyes didn't hold their usual cocky arrogance. "Look, I'm sorry. Can we just go back to the way we were?"

She wanted to, but she didn't know how. She didn't quite trust him after the way he'd treated her. "What are you sorry for, sir?"

"For acting like a jerk."

It was a start. Her defenses lowered. "I'm still mad, but I'll probably forgive you eventually."

He grinned. "That's better." He crossed the room, leaning over her shoulder to look at the thing she brought back with her. "Got it working yet?"

Still a little gun-shy, she shifted away from him slightly. "I'm trying to figure out what it does before I decide if I want to turn it on." She kept her face turned away from him; she didn't want him to see the tears that hadn't quite dried.

"Carter?" Of course, Jack was far too observant to miss them. "What's wrong, baby?"

Forgetting entirely about the tears, her head whipped around to face him. "Baby?"

He didn't even acknowledge her remark. "Why are you crying?"

She shook her head, trying to figure out which one of them had completely lost their mind. "You just called me baby, sir."

He smiled. "That's not why you're crying." He reached out to brush his hand along her jaw. "You've never cried when I called you that before."

Her hands gripped the counter in anger. "Well, I've never heard you before."

He chuckled as his hand moved down to her waist. "You heard me the other night. Hell, I think the neighbors heard me the other night."

Her face reddened with anger. "How dare you!"

"Come on, Carter, I said I was sorry."

"It doesn't count if you keep acting like a jerk."

"I'm not acting like a jerk. I apologized. What else do you want from me?"

She took a step back, out of the reach of his hand, which he didn't seem to like. Her voice came out in a whisper because she was afraid someone would overhear. "I want you to stop pretending that we're sleeping together. Someone is going to hear you and as funny as you apparently think it is at this moment, you probably won't feel the same when we get court martialed."

He sighed and turned away from her, leaning back against the desk. "I'm sorry, Carter. I am. I wasn't expecting family get-togethers yet. I freaked out and I'm sorry, but that's no reason for you to act all high and mighty about our relationship."

"Sir, we don't have a relationship." As much as it hurt to say it, she knew that outside of the occasional flirtatious moments, it was the truth.

When he turned back to her, she saw hurt reflected in his eyes. "Carter, don't do this." He reached for her again, putting his arms around her loosely. "I'll go to your cousin's wedding. I didn't know it was going to be this big of a deal."

She was so surprised she didn't even think to back out of his reach. "What? I didn't invite you to my cousin's wedding." She didn't even remember mentioning it to him, even though she clearly remembered being mortified at the thought of attending another family function as the resident spinster.

One hand moved to her face, sliding along her jaw and along her neck. "I'm not going to lose you over some stupid wedding, baby." He leaned in, his eyes dark and seductive. "Not when I just got you."

Her mind was reeling. She couldn't think, let alone move. At least, that was what she told herself when his lips pressed against hers. She repeated it to herself when he deepened the kiss. She reveled in the sensations, momentarily losing sight of the fact that her CO had completely fabricated an intimate relationship with her.

She felt his hands sliding down her arms and around her hips, reminding her of the way he'd touched her that afternoon. She hadn't thought his behavior odd at the time, but when she looked at the whole picture, she realized something had been going on even then. She stiffened, pushing at his hands.

"Stop."

He groaned, moving his hands from under the pressure of hers and relocating them to her hair. "I said I'll go, Carter." He brought his lips down to hers once again, but she resisted, turning her face away. He moved his lips to her ear, skin brushing skin as he spoke in a low, husky voice. "Let me make it up to you, Sam. You know I can."

She shivered from the contact and the words. She'd had years to consider it and she'd reached the conclusion that his innate confidence came from somewhere that he didn't feel compelled to brag about, at least not with her. She believed he could make just about anything up to her if he wanted to. Her body relaxed under his hands.

Her silence encouraged him. His lips moved to her neck as his hands started working on the buttons on her jacket. His mouth brushed her ear again. "I've missed this."

His words stunned her for a moment and she stiffened once again. "Wait, what?" She was struggling to get her thought process functional again. It kept getting sidetracked every time he kissed her.

"You haven't let me come near you in two days over the damn wedding, remember?" He smiled and moved to kiss her again.

There was something possessive in his eyes, in his hands, that she didn't like. It wasn't that he was hurting her, far from it; it was that he fully expected her to give in, which she thought to be a little presumptuous under the circumstances. She jerked her head away. "Sir, stop."

He pulled back immediately, withdrawing from her like he'd been burned. "That's a quick way to kill a mood." He didn't say another word as he stormed past her, leaving her to stare after him once again.


	4. Chapter 4

_AN: I appreciate the comments. Keep 'em coming!_

Chapter Four

As soon as her mouth was off his skin, he felt slightly more rational. To make sure he stayed that way, he kept as much space between them as possible while he backed to the door. His hand fumbled behind him to unlock it because he was leery of taking his eyes off Carter long enough to glance at it.

She appeared to be taking his resistance as a challenge and he knew full well that Samantha Carter had never been one to back down. He was fairly certain that his body wouldn't put up a fight for much longer. He knew, if she tried to seduce him one more time, he was going to give it. It was too hard to resist something they both wanted to desperately.

The lock wasn't cooperating and his hand completely lacked all dexterity reaching over his shoulder like it was. But he wasn't about to give up on it. Getting away from her was his only hope of not doing something stupid that would undoubtedly ruin their relationship when she came back to her senses.

Carter grinned smugly, letting him know she knew exactly how close he was to giving in to her. "I don't know how you lasted two days."

Jack tried to understand her, which he realized was silly considering her overall behavior.

She took a step toward him, letting her eyes peruse his body. "I don't know how I lasted two days." She took another step, her hands reaching for his belt with no hesitation. Just as she did, amid a panicked frenzy with both of his hands reaching behind him, the lock finally slid home.

Carter's hands froze on his belt. She looked shocked and, like an idiot, he felt bad for a moment for the hurt that flashed in her eyes. "Jack?" She sounded scared, nervous, unsure. All things Carter never was. Or at least things she never let him see.

He narrowed his eyes, feeling more confidence in his ability to withstand her advances as long as the door was unlocked. He could make a break for it at any time. He could outrun her, provided his body would respond to his commands. At that moment, his body seemed kind of partial to her commands. He cleared his throat and tried to appear in control. "When did you start calling me Jack?"

She actually looked as confused as he felt. "I thought you didn't want me to call you sir in bed." She grinned as she leaned into him again, her weight pressing her hands against his stomach. His mind reeled, wishing for an instant that she would lower them the slightest bit. She giggled and he realized he was actually leaning toward her as well. "Maybe you'd prefer muffin?"

The idea of Carter calling anything, besides maybe a small dog, muffin made him laugh. It broke the tension once again and he was able to regain his balance. His hands closed over both of hers, relocating them safely behind her back where she wouldn't be able to use them to unfasten his belt. Unfortunately, the move only brought her body closer to his, which negated the control he'd just regain.

Her eyes were dancing and happy as she looked at him, but her face was perfectly serious. "I never pegged you for the bondage type, Jack."

The thing that really threw him was that she didn't seem all that upset by it. That was as disturbing as Carter in full-on seduction mode. She was a good girl. She wasn't supposed to be willing to try those things. But as Jack stared into her trusting eyes, it hit home that she'd do anything he asked.

Which was just another reason he couldn't take advantage of her body while something was controlling her mind.

Keeping both of her wrists in one of his hands, he stepped back and tried to cool off. He looked at her and told himself that he was just imagining the desire in her eyes. "Carter, there's something wrong with you and we're going to go visit Janet and get you all straightened out, ok?"

"I draw the line at a threesome, Jack."

"Gah! Stop!" He pressed both of his hands over his eyes, trying to will the images out of his head and forgetting entirely that he'd been holding her still.

Once freed, she immediately resumed her attack and managed to unhook his belt in about a second flat. "I can keep you entertained, Jack. You don't need another girl." With that, she dropped to her knees and reached for the button of his pants.

How, exactly, he was able to form a rational thought at that moment, looking down at Samantha Carter on her knees before him, he never knew. He just knew that her position gave him that second he needed to run and run he did.

The next thing he knew, he was running at full tilt into the infirmary. He hadn't even intended to go there and he hadn't expected General Hammond to be there either. Jack skidded to a halt, nearly colliding with the petite doctor standing just inside the door. He smiled weakly. He'd been willing to talk to Janet hypothetically about something being wrong with Carter, but he couldn't bring himself to mention it to the general - not until he had some proof that there was something they could fix. Because when it came down to it, there was always the chance that Carter had simply decided to carry through on all those looks and touches and innuendos they'd been throwing at each other for years.

He looked around, knowing he looked like a complete idiot. "Hey, this isn't Danny's office."

He quite possibly looked like an even more complete idiot when Carter came around the corner, ran straight into him, and landed them both in a tangled heap on the floor.

Of course it didn't help that Carter tried the same lame thing as she slowly pulled herself to her feet. "I was just looking for Teal'c, but I guess he's not here."

Jack saw the general's unhappy face and turned to look at Janet instead. But instead of her usual friendly smile, she had her face buried in a file. He could see her shoulders shaking with her silent laughter. He took a step toward the door, carefully making sure he didn't come in contact with Carter on his way while trying to make it seem like he wasn't avoiding her. "I'll try somewhere else."

"Colonel." The general appeared far too calm, which thoroughly unnerved Jack. "Major."

Jack tried to pay attention to his CO, but his mind was on Carter and the way she was creeping closer to him.

The general walked past them, pausing in the doorway to sigh a fatherly, disappointed sigh. "Try to keep it off the base, please."

The moment Hammond disappeared around the corner, Dr. Fraiser dissolved into a fit of hysterical giggles. Jack stared at her in shock. He'd been running to her in terror and she, as well as Hammond, thought it was some kind of foreplay.

He turned to Carter, seeing the situation differently than he had before. Maybe Carter wasn't the one who was out of her mind. Maybe it was him. "Carter?"

She smiled at him, a normal, non-temptress, Carter smile. "You want to keep denying it, sir?"

He closed his eyes and groaned. "Doc, there is something horribly wrong with either me or Carter, but one of us has some sort of wacky alien thing going on."

Janet looked concerned, not at what Jack was implying but at the fact that he was implying it. She crossed her arms in front of her and glanced at Carter quickly before facing Jack. "Sir, are you asking me to subject you to a full work up?" Her incredulous voice, tinged with a bit of masochistic glee, reminded Jack of how very much he hated being examined.

"That should give you an idea of how serious I am that something is not quite right here." He shrugged, then pointed at Carter. "Her first."

Carter was irritated that he was dragging other people into their argument. She stepped towards him and spoke softly to keep Janet from overhearing. "Is this really necessary?" When he only nodded, warily taking a step away from her and disregarding the way Janet snickered at him for it, Carter tried again. "I'm sorry I asked you to come to the wedding with me. I didn't mean to freak you out like this." She turned to him, apparently no longer caring if anyone saw or overheard, and took his hands in hers. "Please, Jack, I'm sorry. Let's just forget about this and go home."

Jack looked up, horrified that Carter was saying and doing things that were liable to be picked up by security cameras. He saw Janet pretending to be reading a chart, politely giving them room to discuss something so personal. "Carter, what the hell has gotten into you? What wedding? What home?" He saw disappointment and annoyance flicker across Carter's face as she moved back to stand beside him. "Janet, you can start with her."

The doctor looked up, surprised to find Carter climbing onto a cot. "Sir? Are you sure?"

Jack nodded emphatically. "Oh, yes."

Janet winced as she looked at Carter. "Ok, what seems to be the problem?"

Carter looked at Jack, but he resolutely turned away. She was the crazy one; she was the one who needed to voice her delusions. "The colonel and I are having a disagreement and apparently the only reason for that is alien influence."

Janet scratched her head and offered them both a look of practiced patience. "I'm really not a psychiatrist. Perhaps you should talk to Dr. Mackenzie if you need relationship counseling."

"Janet, we don't need relationship counseling. Carter is hallucinating!" Jack felt guilty, but he was pleased with the doctor immediately pointed her pen light at Carter's eyes.

"What sort of hallucinations, Sam?"

Carter pushed the pen light away, shielding her eyes. "I'm not hallucinating. He's just being a jerk."

Janet put the pen light back in her pocket and folded her arms over her chest. "What the hell is going on here? Is there a problem or isn't there?"

Carter glared at Jack. "There's a problem all right. Rather than just sucking it up and coming to my cousin's wedding with me, he's pretending that we're not involved."

Janet snickered as she turned to face Jack. "Sir, you do realize that people have seen you out together. You came to Cassie's party as a couple."

"We did not!" Jack wasn't sure how Carter had roped her in, but he didn't like that Janet was suddenly on her side. It was some tricky girl power thing, he was sure.

Janet didn't say anything, but she inclined her head and Carter obediently hopped off the cot. "Sir, why don't we have a look at you first?"

"Oh, so because I'm not hallucinating you're going to pick on me first?" Jack really didn't like the I-told-you-so look on Carter's face and the placating smile on Janet's.

"Sir, I'm just going to say this once to make sure we're clear." She took a deep breath and stared him straight in the eye. "If you come to me officially with a complaint of not having any memory of your romantic relationship with Major Carter, I'm going to have to report anything I find, including if I find nothing."

"You're going to examine her too, right?" He wasn't sure why denying that they were sleeping together was a bad thing.

"And that means that Sam's claim that you are together, as well as any witnesses to her claim, will have to be officially mentioned." She looked at Carter with a sad glance. "Which means your relationship will be officially noted, leaving General Hammond with very few choices on how to proceed."

His heart dropped right out of his chest. "But Janet, there's nothing going on. And when you shine that little light of yours in her eyes for a few minutes, you'll find whatever's wrong with her and fix her and then there won't be a problem since we're not seeing each other, right?"

Janet's face fell. It was clear she'd expected her words to have a sobering effect on Jack. She looked at Carter instead. "Sam, you have a choice here. Is he telling the truth?"

Jack's eyes fell on Carter, seeing the fear and sorrow in her eyes. She looked at Jack. "Jack, are you sure you want to do this?"

His eyes widened. "Damn it, Carter, I'm not doing anything!"

She turned back to Janet and Jack watched as she nodded. "I'm really worried about him. I don't think he's faking this."

Janet sighed and turned back to Jack. "This is going to be a long night."


	5. Chapter 5

_AN: Your reviews rock! Thank you!_

Chapter Five

Out of fear, confusion, and understanding that she might not be so readily able to send the colonel packing if he tried again, Carter sat in her lab with the door locked for the first time since she'd started at the SGC. She wasn't sure what to do, hence the blockade in the lab. It was possible that she'd been mistaken, that perhaps she'd mentioned Beth's wedding in passing, but she certainly hadn't invited Jack to go with her. And even if he'd somehow assumed an invitation in the comment she didn't remember making, there was no way she could be so confused that she'd forget the intimate relationship Jack firmly believed she was withholding from him over said invitation.

She really only had two options and neither of them was looking particularly attractive to her. Either there was something horrible wrong with Jack and her memories were right or there was something horribly wrong with her and she just couldn't remember the torrid affair she was having with her CO. Deciding on the next course of action was proving to be problematic. If something was wrong with Jack, they could fix it, hopefully, and everything would go back to normal with a probably painfully embarrassed Jack licking his wounds. On the other hand, if the problem was with her, once they fixed whatever was wrong with her, she and Jack would immediately face a court martial. With those options, hiding out in the lab until whatever it was just went away looked better and better with every passing second.

And there was, of course, the helpful part of her libido that suggested she simply follow Jack's lead and give in to what he was finally openly admitting to wanting. She was resolutely ignoring that part because she was pretty sure, given much of a chance, that she could easily convince herself that was the best solution given all the possible outcomes.

Carter's ears perked up when she heard footsteps in the hall. They stopped right outside her door. A knock fell against the metal. Her heart thudded in her chest in panic. If it was the colonel, she wouldn't have much choice about opening the door. As fearful as she was that it was him coming back to torture her, she also hoped that it would be him coming to apologize so everything could go back to normal.

Another knock. Carter hopped off her stool and backed against the wall, cursing herself for not going home when she had the chance. She'd been too afraid of bumping into the colonel in the elevator where she'd have no chance of escape.

"Sam? Are you in there?" Daniel's voice had never sounded so good.

She pulled the door open with a relieved smile. "Hi."

Daniel noticed her smile and checked behind himself, looking to see what was making her so happy. "What are you smiling about?"

"I'm just happy to see you." She tried to nonchalantly close the door behind him, but she had to prod him out of the way to do so. And his eyes widened the slightest bit when she threw the lock.

He looked scared. "What's going on?" His fear faded to suspicion when Carter went back to her usual perch at the bench. He kept glancing between her and the door.

Sam smiled again, knowing her smile was giving her away, but being unable stop herself. "Nothing, why?"

"Cause Jack just asked me to come talk to you."

Suddenly fearing that Daniel had whatever Jack had, she retreated to the far side of the bench. It had been strange, but nice when Jack jumped her. It would just be creepy if Daniel did the same. "About what?"

Daniel bit his lip and looked intensely uncomfortable. "He's really sorry, Sam." Looking even more uncomfortable, he shifted toward the door. "Why didn't you guys tell me? I thought you trusted me." He looked hurt.

"Daniel, I swear to you, there's nothing to tell."

Daniel narrowed his eyes. "You should really work out your stories better. See, when I asked Jack that same question, he said he did tell me and I must have forgotten."

"That's ridiculous! How could you forget something like that?"

"I know. Like I would have forgotten finally hearing your guys admit to something I've suspected since we met." Daniel looked down. "But I know now and you know I know, so there's no point in keeping up the act, Sam."

"It's not an act, Daniel." She knew she was safe with him, except from a possible unwarranted guilt trip, so she returned to her stool. "The colonel and I are not involved. Something must have happened to us on that planet. He was fine and then he wasn't."

Daniel leaned over on his elbows next to her. "What was he angry at you for?"

Carter shrugged. "See, that's just it. He was ok and we were just-" Her face burned when she thought about the way his hands felt on her hips earlier in the day, before she suspected he'd gone insane.

Daniel laughed. "Uh huh, sure, right. Not involved."

"Daniel, I mean it! We weren't doing anything!" Nothing worth mentioning - not when he'd technically been correcting her for not being aware of her surrounds while she was on an alien planet.

Daniel straightened up, deciding she was trying to cover up something far more incriminating. "Yeah, so anyway, Jack's really sorry. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Don't leave me here! I need your help. What if he comes back here?" She didn't care if she sounded crazy. She knew having Daniel with her would deter Jack from being affectionate. At least, she hoped it would.

"So you either forgive him for not wanting to go wherever it is that he doesn't want to go or you dump him." He glanced back at her as he unlocked the door. "But, if you choose the latter, let him down easy, ok?"

"What?" She was starting to think it wasn't just Jack. Maybe everyone was losing their minds.

"He actually looked kind of pathetic when he said you wouldn't talk to him, Sam. I think it'll break his heart."

"Daniel! Wait!" She jumped up from her seat. She put her hand over his shoulder to hold the door closed. "The colonel didn't want me to talk to him, Daniel."

Daniel turned to face her and winced. "Sam, you guys are my friends, but I so don't want to hear this."

"Daniel, please!" Her shriek prevented either of them from hearing the approaching steps.

"Carter?" Neither Daniel nor Sam had time to react before Jack pushed the door open slightly. He was a little stunned to see Sam so close to Daniel, resting her hand against the door he was pushing on. Sam wanted to cry that he was back and she was still without a viable solution. Daniel wanted to disappear. "Sorry to interrupt."

He didn't say anything else; he just turned and hurried away.

Daniel looked terrified when it dawned on him what Jack thought. He looked at Carter with wide eyes. "Oh, God, Sam, it'll kill him if he thinks-"

Carter didn't hear him because, against her better judgment, she was running down the hall after her CO. She didn't care whether something was wrong with him or her or both or neither; she couldn't live with herself if she hurt him like that. And she knew it would hurt him because as confident as Jack acted, she knew he was insecure, especially around his over-educated, articulate friend.

She saw him duck into the locker room and she didn't hesitate as she followed, peeking her head around the door slowly at first to make sure he was alone. Lucking it was late enough that most of the staff had gone home. "Sir?"

"This is the men's locker room, Carter." He sounded hard and angry.

"That wasn't what you think."

He pulled his locker door open and yanked his jacket out, knocking several things off the shelf. "I think I heard you begging Daniel for something and I know I saw you and Daniel standing much closer than friends might stand, so please, tell me, Carter, if it wasn't what I think, exactly what the hell was it?"

Carter fought back a proud smile. She didn't mean to gloat that Jack was jealous over what he thought was her interest in another man, but she couldn't help herself. "Sir, I assure you I'm not interest in Daniel that way."

He glared at her, the heat she'd seen in his eyes earlier replaced with ice. "Apparently, you're not interested in me that way either."

She couldn't believe it. Jack, her proud, strong, hard-edged colonel was actually asking her for reassurance. So she was stuck. There was no way to reassure him without crossing a line she'd swore she would never cross again, not after that first terrifying conversation when she'd had to make them both admit their feelings to save their lives.

But she couldn't break his heart either.

She took a deep breath and stared straight into his eyes. "Don't ever think that, Jack."

He turned away. "Then what happened earlier? You couldn't stand me touching you."

She shook her head. "That's not true."

He closed his locker and moved to face her. "No?" He sounded small and scared.

She hated that anything she'd done, regardless of the reasons why, had hurt him. She did the only thing she could think of. She crossed the space between them, wrapped her arms around his neck, and hugged him at tightly as she could. He squeezed her back, so tight she could barely breathe.

And then, she was pressed up against the lockers, his mouth open over hers, his hands moving against her skin. His reaction to her caused such a powerful overload of emotion in her that she couldn't do anything but kiss him back.


	6. Chapter 6

_AN: I was wondering what was taking me so long to write... and then I realized this is another really long part... I'm sure you won't mind. :)_

Chapter Six

It took Dr. Fraiser six hours to run out of tests to perform. She checked the paperwork on their charts. Then she looked at Jack. He was smiling at Carter, who'd fallen asleep next to him with her head on his shoulder. The doctor spoke softly, trying not to disturb the one among them who was getting a decent night's sleep. "Sir?"

Jack slowly pulled his eyes off Carter, loathe to look away from such a heartwarming scene as she presented. He'd been so focused on Carter that he'd nearly forgotten about Janet altogether. "Yeah?"

Janet shrugged. "I can't find anything wrong, sir." She flipped through the charts again. "Your blood work is fine. Your scans are fine. You're both in perfect health."

"That can't be." He glanced at Carter's sleeping face, a hint of a smile still playing on her lips. "I don't remember this. I don't remember going to Cassie's party with her. I mean, I went and I saw her there, but Carter and I weren't there together."

Janet sat down on the bed across from him. "Maybe you should think about talking to Dr. Mackenzie."

"Over my dead body."

"I know you're not big on shrinks, sir-"

He grinned. "Isn't that an oxy moron?"

Janet rolled her eyes. "There's no physical reason for your memory loss; therefore, it must by psychological."

Jack shook his head. "Maybe you just can't detect it."

She didn't look convinced. "Your blood work and physical exam are identical to when you went on the mission and I know full well there was nothing wrong with your memory then. Not the way you two were glaring at each other."

"See, that's just it! We weren't fighting. She thinks we were fighting, but we weren't." Jack didn't feel compelled to point out that they couldn't have been fighting what with all the flirting they were doing. He feared that would just convince her that he did actually remember having an intimate relationship with her.

"Sir, a word of advice: if your girlfriend thinks you're fighting, you are." Janet smiled at him like he was an idiot.

"No, Janet, we weren't fighting. She didn't think we were fighting then either."

Janet motioned at Carter. "I believe it's psychological, sir. It's only affecting you and I don't believe for one second that Sam is going to let this slide."

Glancing at his sleeping girlfriend, who he couldn't remember ever dating, he felt a cold squeeze on his heart. "I don't want to hurt her, Janet."

"As long as you've only forgotten your relationship and aren't claiming that you don't love her, I imagine she'd more worried that hurt, sir. If you're faking it, however, that worry may well turn into homicidal rage." Janet hopped off the bed and sighed. "I'm going to talk to the general as soon as he gets in. You might want to enjoy your last few hours of freedom."

Once Janet left the infirmary, Jack leaned over and dropped a kiss in Carter's hair. "Carter, wake up." She mumbled sleepily, stretching her arm around him, but she didn't quite wake up. Not knowing anything reason why he should bother resisting, he put his hand under her chin and angled her face towards his. "Come on, sleepyhead." He leaned down, brushing his lips across hers.

Her eyes blinked open after a moment, a warm smile appearing across her lips. "Hi." She stretched a bit, lightly pressing her mouth back against his. "Remember me yet?"

"Janet's going to talk to Hammond in the morning." He looked away, not wanting to see the inevitable change in her face from welcoming to disappointed.

She sat up, leaving his side cold without her warmth. "So there's nothing wrong with you, right?"

He reached over, placing his hand over hers, only to have her pull away. "Nothing except not remember the greatest thing that ever happened to me."

Carter stood up, having shifted back into military mode. "How very convenient, sir. I can only assume your memory will suddenly return on Sunday once the wedding is safely out of the way." She headed for the door.

"Carter, don't walk away from me." He hated that his request sounded like an order. He hated that she obeyed, knowing it was only because it sounded like an order. The woman in Carter probably wanted to smack some sense into him.

He moved in front of her and tried to hold her eyes, but she wouldn't look at him. "Look, Carter, this has nothing to do with some damn wedding. I'll go. I don't remember you asking and I certainly don't remember anything that might possess you to ask me to go with you as your date, but I'll go. That's not the issue here."

There were tears welling in her eyes when she looked at him. "I don't want you to go if you don't want to." She reached up and swiped angrily at the dampness on her cheeks. "Why are you pretending you and I don't mean anything to each other?"

He placed his hands on her shoulders, spurring her to look at him. "I never said that."

"Then why are you doing this?" She tried to turn away again.

"Sam, look at me." He waited until she reluctantly did so. "I remember loving you. I remember you loving me. But I swear I don't remember us ever doing anything about it."

She held his eyes for a long time. "I was really hoping Janet would find some alien amnesia drug in your head."

"So maybe it's something else."

"Like what?" She rubbed her eyes. "How about we discuss this in the morning?"

"I think we're going to be getting court martialed in the morning." Jack looked at Carter's tired face and realized that, because of the relationship he forgot, she was letting him see the human side of her. "Maybe you're right. Sleep first. Think later."

Once inside the elevator, Carter pressed the button for level 19. Jack reached out to press the button for 22, where his quarters were, but Carter snagged his hand for it got there. She interlaced their fingers and smiled at him. "Considering we'll be spending tomorrow night in the brig, you don't honestly expect me to spend tonight alone, do you?"

He swallowed hard and reminded himself that he was the one going insane, that this behavior wasn't at all inappropriate for a committed relationship, that it was probably his last chance to be near her for a very long time unless conjugal were permitted in prison.

She smiled, taking his silence as agreement. She led him by the hand to her quarters. Not even bothering with the lights, she kicked off her boots and sat down on the bed. "We've got about two hours before the general gets in." She pulled back the blanket and climbed in bed fully dressed. "I hope you don't mind, Jack, but I'm tired and I really just want to sleep."

Jack didn't know why he was disappointed, considering he'd wanted her to stop throwing herself at him all night. Still he was glad for the darkness as he shut the door and climbed in beside her. "Yeah, that's fine, baby."

He winced as soon as the word left his mouth. He'd never referred to her by anything other than Carter, Major, or, in a pinch, Sam. Terms of endearment weren't usually his thing anyway, but it felt oddly natural when it rolled off his tongue. He was expecting something from her - anger, upset, giggles, something.

She rolled over, snuggled into his side, and threw her arm over his stomach. "So it's just sheer luck you happen to remember that you always call me baby, right?"

He couldn't answer. He was trying to figure how he'd survived calling her something so patronizing more than once. He cleared his throat to get rid of the lump. "And that's ok with you?"

"As long as no one else ever hears it, you can call me anything you want, Jack."

He lay there for a long time, reveling in the feel of her warm body pressed against his. He wanted to laugh at himself for going soft - he'd never envisioned the day would come when holding a woman in his arms was enough for him, but it was. He couldn't remember anything else between them, although from what he'd experienced in the locker room, he suspected that was pretty damn great too, but just having her in his arms, knowing she was safe and content next to him, was the greatest feeling in the world.

"Have you slept at all?" Even though she was groggy and half asleep, he could still hear the concern in her voice.

"I'm fine. Go back to sleep." He didn't want her to wake up because then he'd have to let go of her and he wasn't quite ready to do that.

She propped herself up on her forearms and leaned over him. "What's wrong?"

He looked at her - his Sam, finally - and he knew there was no one else he'd ever trust more. "This is nice. I want to enjoy it." Jack wasn't sure he'd ever be able to sleep again without being able to smell her.

"We'll figure out what's wrong with you, Jack. I promise." She lowered herself down, pressing her head against his chest. "As nice as this is, it's still nice to do other things too."

He couldn't help the innate panic that caused him to tense. "And you're sure I was used to hearing things like that from you?"

She giggled. "Between the two of us, we know every single square inch on this base." She looked up and winked at him. "Including those square inches where the security cameras can't reach."

"Oh, for crying out loud!"

She giggled again and Jack heard a note of pride in it. She'd gotten him to give in to his feelings somehow, despite a long career of military rules. Of course, he knew she hadn't been the only persuasive one.

"And how exactly did I ever talk you in to screwing around on base?"

"First of all, I'm pretty much always here, so it's not like you find me at home much." She leaned up again, snagging his earlobe lightly with her teeth. "And there really wasn't a whole lot of talking involved, Jack." Her tongue darted out, sliding against his skin.

"I thought you just wanted to sleep." His voice came out in a low growl. He wanted to curse himself; he expected more from his self-control.

"I do. I'm just demonstrating, since you seem to have forgotten how very quickly good sense abandons both of us when we're together." She giggled again as she snuggled back into his side, preparing to go right back to sleep knowing full well that with one touch she'd gotten him very hot and bothered.

"You are evil, woman." He shifted uncomfortably, promising himself he wasn't going to do anything more intimate with her until he could remember. It didn't seem right otherwise. "Sam?" It only felt a little strange to call her that and he decided he could get used to it in a matter of minutes. "How did this happen?"

"I think it all started when I challenged you to arm wrestle."

He laughed. If he was being honest, that little challenge of hers, her inability to be intimidated, had definitely gotten his attention. "Technically, it started when I looked up and saw you walking across the briefing room. But I don't mean the tension, I mean this." He tightened his arm around her to indicate the next step.

"It was only a few weeks ago." She was quiet for a minute. "I can't believe it's only been a little over five weeks. It feels like forever."

Jack felt a little better that he hadn't forgotten years of snuggling and dates and anniversaries that he would forever be blamed for losing. "Five weeks, huh?"

"Five perfect weeks." She shrugged against him. "You know, until two days ago and the wedding debacle."

"I said I'd go." He wasn't about to get into another fight with her. Not when he was loving the snuggling.

"But you don't even remember why you didn't want to go, so you see how that's not much of a victory for me."

"We're not getting into this again. The only reason I wouldn't have wanted to go was because we'd undoubtedly be around other people at a wedding and then we wouldn't be alone."

"We're getting into this again when you remember. And not a minute before." She sighed and Jack feared she was getting angry.

"So, five weeks ago, what changed?"

"I was on my way home for once, but I had a flat tire."

Jack closed his eyes and smiled. He remembered that. He remembered bumping into her in the parking lot and offering to change the flat. He remembered discovered that her spare was missing and the precious blush she had when she admitted taking the spare out to make room for the dirt bike she'd bought for Cassie two years earlier and never quite getting around to putting it back. "You ever put that spare back?"

"Why would I? I hardly learned a lesson from not having one."

He remembered taking her home. He'd given serious thought the entire way, while she was happily babbling about something or other, to asking her to join him for dinner, friends only, but in the end, he'd watched her walk inside without saying anything and had gone home by himself.

"So you gave me a ride."

"Yeah, I remember that."

"And then you invited me to dinner."

His heart stopped. "No, I didn't."

Carter propped herself up again. "Yes, you did. You asked if I wanted to get dinner and I said yes and we decided to try that new Giatelli's place and it turned out to be this tiny little romantic place."

"No, we didn't. I thought about asking you to dinner, but I didn't actually do it."

"Yes, Jack, you did. We were both starving so we decided to stay and after some wine and truly unbelievable chocolate cake, you drove me home and I invited you in for coffee and I'm sure you can guess what happened after that." She smiled at him, obviously thinking about those happenings she alluded to.

Jack shook his head. "No, Carter, I clearly remember you waving at me from the door. I drove home berating myself for being so stupid to not invite you for dinner when I knew you didn't have a car and probably didn't have any food in the house."

"You can stop berating yourself, Jack. You took care of dinner." She giggled. "And dessert."

He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "If I'd forgotten about us or had amnesia, I just wouldn't be able to remember, right?"

Carter sat up, leaving only her hand on his chest as she sat beside him. "I've never had amnesia, but I don't think you'd create a whole other real-"

It wasn't very often that Carter was so taken by surprise at one of her own thoughts that she stopped in the middle of a sentence. And when she did, Jack knew it wasn't foretelling anything good.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

It took the ministrations of Jack's obscenely gifted mouth approximately half a second to stop Carter's thought process and reduce her vocabulary to various breathy moans. She would have said the idea of kissing Jack would be enough to discourage coherent thought, but actually experiencing it, free of alien viruses, was more remarkable than even she had imagined, which was a little scary for her since she'd imagined it an awful lot in the seven years she'd spent quietly lusting after him.

And simply because she'd placed most of the blame on his mouth, she had to remind herself to breathe at the touch of his equally talented hands, which had made their way under her shirt and were pressing against her back. She was particularly thankful for them because they alleviated the unrelenting pain of the padlock that had been pressing into the small of her back.

Which, unfortunately, was a sobering thought.

As much as she wanted him, and that was a hell of a lot more than she'd ever guessed, she was not about to have their first time up against the lockers in the mens locker room where people were liable to walk in at any moment. And she absolutely knew there was no chance she could resist him if she didn't stop him very, very soon.

Her hands were free, for the moment, so she pressed them against his shoulders. "Wait."

He didn't appear to hear her, which might have been because he'd chosen that same moment to slide one of his legs between hers, aligning their bodies perfectly so she could fell that he apparently wanted her as much as she wanted him, thus driving what little sense she'd regained right out of her head. Her hands abandoned his shoulders, moving up and tangling in his perpetually messy hair. She used her hold to pry his mouth off her neck so she could kiss him. She smiled at his dark eyes, amazed with herself for making such an incredible man want her so much. Her fingers played with his hair as they kissed. When his lips once again journeyed to the hollow of her throat, she leaned against his ear, confessing something she'd always wanted to have the opportunity to tell him.

"I love your hair when it gets long and messy like this." She didn't tell him it was because it made for a good handle, in addition to simply being adorable.

He pulled back slightly and grinned at her. "I know." He leaned in and kissed her lips. "That's why I stopped cutting it."

She giggled at the notion she had the power to control him like that. "How did you know?" She hoped her face hadn't revealed the way her stomach flipped every time she'd ever seen him with his messy mop of hair.

"Because you told me." He moved in to kiss her again.

Carter jerked her head back, wondering how she ever could have gotten so drunk that she'd ever said such a thing and hadn't remembered it. "When?"

He shrugged, his eyes focusing on her neck. "A couple weeks ago? I don't remember."

She didn't resist again as he left a trail of wet kisses along her throat. But even as she leaned back to give him better access, she clearly remembered being disappointed earlier that week when Jack had shown up one morning sporting that horrible cropped cut she hated so much. She was quite a scholar on how fast his hair grew because she'd paid far too much attention to it over the years and she knew there was no way it had grown that fast.

A chill ran through her and she jerked away, tripping over the bench and slamming her knee into the cement floor. Utter confusion reflected on Jack's face as he tried to figure out what she wanted from him. Evidently, space wasn't among the things that occurred to him. He squatted down on the floor next to her, prying her hands away from her throbbing knee.

"Let me see it."

"No." She tried to scoot backwards, but she was still half out of her mind from the power of his kisses. "Don't touch me."

He met her eyes for a moment, before he sighed and slumped back against the lockers. "What did I do this time?"

Carter quickly discovered that her brain's speed was directly proportional to the distance from Jack's mouth to her skin. Therefore, the further away his mouth was, the faster she could think. "Who are you?"

Jack closed his eyes and shook his head. "You're not still mad about the wedding, are you?"

Memories she hadn't known existed were coming back to her and she remembered something from the briefing that morning - while she was gazing, as Daniel had so politely put it, at Jack, she'd had a fleeting thought about actually telling him he looked stupid with his hair damn near shaved like he was in boot camp. There was no chance in hell his hair had grown that fast. There was no chance in hell the man, or thing, in front of her was Jack.

She climbed unsteadily to her feet, willing her knee to stop hurting. "Stay away from me." She turned and sprinted from the room, thinking the suddenness of her departure would give her a decent head start.

She locked herself and two guards in the security office. She wanted to ask General Hammond to order the Jack imposter locked up, but she had no evidence she could use, besides evidence that would incriminate her. Throwing herself in a chair and rubbing her sore knee, she ordered on of the guards to bring up the security tapes from the gate room when they were returning from the mission. Just before their return had been when she'd noticed Jack's behavior change. On another monitor she had them bring up the video of them leaving.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him, the colonel she knew, the man she trusted, her Jack, walking up the ramp beside her that morning with that ridiculously short hair cut. She glanced at the footage of them returning, Jack, with his hair at least an inch longer, scowling unhappily at her.

Her voice was weak as she asked someone to hand her the phone. She'd really been hoping that she was wrong. She waited patiently for the general to come, checking to be sure it was really him in a rarely observed, extremely paranoid fashion, before she allowed the guards to open the door.

Even as she reported the story to Hammond, she berated herself. She'd known something was wrong. She'd recognized his mood swing and had ignored it. She'd heard him lie about sleeping with her. She'd seen him forget his iris code. She'd caught him lying to the general about never being out of her sight on the mission. And the one thing she hated about herself the most was that the clearest indicator that he wasn't Jack, the outrageous way he'd flirted with her and touched her that afternoon, was something she'd cherished. She was mortified, even though she hadn't said a word about it. She'd let her personal feelings for him cloud her professional judgment - something she'd sworn she would never do.

Hammond listened to her story, to her vague explanation that the colonel hadn't been acting quite right, and carefully inspected the footage she held up as evidence. He asked her to meet him in the briefing room. When he arrived a few minutes later, Daniel and Teal'c were with him. He questioned them and received the same decidedly vague assurance that Jack's behavior had been odd, although neither of her teammates disclosed any particulars regarding what Jack had said. Carter was exceedingly grateful for it because it was once less thing she'd have to explain. She was praying they could get rid of the fake Jack and get the real one back without anyone being the wiser about just how well she'd been snowed into buying the lie.

A few minutes after that, Jack was brought to the briefing room by a couple of SFs. He looked confused, voicing his distaste with whatever royal screw up had landed him there. Carter looked away when he took in the faces around the table and realized one of them had turned him in.

The SFs blocked the doors, leaving Jack relatively free to move about the room. He inched toward Carter, not knowing she'd been the one to turn him in. Just as he reached her side, she practically leapt halfway across the room to cower on the other side of Daniel.

He looked crushed and Carter had to give him - it - credit for its dead on reproduction of his expressions. "Carter?"

"Stay away from me." Her voice sounded like a hiss. She hated the creature that corrupted her fantasies.

He took a few steps toward her, trying to reach for her in an uncharacteristic display of need for her support. "I'm not going to hurt you, Sam."

She moved further away, stepping to the other side of Teal'c as well, deliberately masking the limp brought on by her swollen knee. She didn't want it to know she had a weakness. "Then don't hurt me from over there."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Carter climbed out of bed and switched on the light. She looked very nervous and distrustful, but also terribly cute with her hair sticking up all over the place. She narrowed her eyes at Jack and he decided it would be very stupid of him to tell her that just then. "When were we on that planet, Jack, did you touch anything?"

He realized it was also not the time for him to suggest that she crawl back into bed with him. Instead, he closed his eyes and thought about her question carefully. "I touched that cubey thing." He realized that was also right around when Carter started acting funny. "And you had that glowing thing that I told you not to turn on that you turned on anyway."

Carter took a deep breath and the angry glare reappeared. "You most certainly did not tell me any such thing. I would never disobey a direct order, not from you." She crossed her armed over her chest, reminding Jack how much better it had been when they were snuggling. "Besides, you were hounding me to see if the damn thing worked, which would have been exceedingly difficult to determine without turning it on."

Jack got up, feeling better prepared to argue when he wasn't lying on her bed. "I think that glowing thing made you mean, psycho Carter."

"Right, the mean, psycho Carter who was trying to seduce poor, innocent Jack."

He glared at her. He didn't like it when she was right about his ides not being logical. "The Carter who isn't mean and psycho never would have tried to seduce me." He hated to say it, but it was true. He felt slightly better that he wasn't as wrong as Carter had tried to make him believe. He didn't appreciate fate's cruel joke that rather than being exciting and wonderful, being seduced by Carter really freaked him out.

Carter looked at the floor, obviously trying to stop herself from arguing further. "Ok, so did you touch anything else while we were there or can we safely assume it was the cube that did this?"

"I think that was it." But then he remembered adjusting the mirror to watch Carter surreptitiously. "I might have touched a mirror too."

Carter shook her head. "Tell me you didn't." She seemed disproportionately angry.

"Yeah, so what if I did?"

"And it never occurred to you to mention it until now? Even with everything that's happened?"

Jack took a few steps away from her because he was fairly certain if Carter was ever going to deck him for being an idiot, it was going to be right then. "The only strange thing was that my hair looked longer."

Much to his chagrin, she laughed. "Good. Problem solved. Let's go find the general before Janet does."

Jack shook his head. "I'm getting whiplash from the mood swings here, Carter."

"You're not supposed to be here."

"You're the one who invited me to stay with you and you were the one coming on to me in the locker room. Don't start throwing the rules in my face now!" He let his anger cloud the hurt that he felt at her sudden rejection. That was something he could deal with later, on his own, without her looking on.

She smiled again. "No, not here in this room here. You're not supposed to be anywhere here."

"Huh?" Jack hated the fact that Carter always seemed to be on a different page than him, although he had kind of enjoyed the pages that involved her kissing him.

"The planet we were on? The one with the writings that Daniel said were just like the ones from P3R-233? Did you really think it was a good idea to touch a mirror on a planet inhabited by the same people who created the quantum mirror?"

"Writings? What?" Jack sat back down on the bed. As fast as his head was spinning, he still couldn't keep up with Carter.

"Maybe your Daniel didn't make the same connection." She sat down next to him and patted his knee. "This isn't your reality. That's why your iris code didn't work. It's what Janet couldn't find that explains your memories being different from mine. You're from an alternate reality."

Oh. Alternate reality. Jack shook his head. That would explain a lot. "But I thought the other realities were really different." When Daniel had found the first one, he'd come back with stories of a staggeringly altered world. And the other Carter, with her tales of their marriage, hadn't been close to his Carter.

"Theoretically there are different realities for every single decision anyone ever makes. The changes spiral out from each decision. The closer you get to one of those decisions, the more indistinct the changes between the realities would be."

Jack shook his head, wondering why he couldn't have fallen for someone who got as easily confused as him. "So how do you know what the change was?"

"Well, it had to be something relatively recent, because the mission list was already determined, but before three weeks ago, which is the last time our iris codes were updated."

She smiled at him and Jack started to feel bad for her Jack. She wasn't mad at him anymore because he was the wrong guy. He suspected that she was still very upset with her Jack over whatever she'd been mad at on the planet.

"You're sure about this?"

"You remember the same recent events as I do, Cassie's party for example, but they're slightly different. The last thing we remembered the same was my flat tire."

Jack smiled, fondly remembering the endearing look on her face when he discovered the missing spare. "The night we didn't go out."

"Bingo. You didn't go out. I did."

"But you said we went together. How does that work?"

"I'm guessing our realities diverged at the point when you made your decision about asking me to dinner. You didn't ask. The Jack that's supposed to be here did."

Jack felt extremely disappointed in himself for not asking. He could have been with her, dating her, expected to attend weddings with her. And then, in a moment of clarity, Jack knew he would absolutely kill anyone who touched Carter while pretending to be him. He glanced around in panic. "And where is the Jack that's supposed to be here again?" He figured he could put up a pretty good fight against himself, but he didn't relish the idea. He recalled how Carter hadn't exactly been jumping for joy when she met her double. "Speaking of which, why aren't I getting electric shock therapy?"

She giggled, sounding for all the world like his Carter. "Convulsive shock. It would be brought on by entropic cascade failure on the cellular level. You're safe because he's not here." She looked concerned for a moment. "Was there a reflection in the mirror?"

"Yes, that's why it was a mirror." Although as he said it, he realized that the reflection wasn't him, it was the Jack in desperate need of a haircut. "You might want to mention to him that his hair is getting a little messy."

She grinned. "I told him not to."

Nervous once again, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "Why?"

"Because you're so much sexier with longer hair."

He shifted away from her, disturbed by her transition back to insane Carter. "You stay over there."

She kept grinning and leaned toward him. "Why?" Her hand moved slowly against his leg. "The realities are almost identical. We have the same history, the same years of waiting. You're still very much my Jack."

He carefully picked her hand off his leg and deposited it on the bed between them. "No. Maybe I was a few weeks ago, but not anymore. I'm her Jack." Slight as they might have been, Jack was acutely aware of the differences between the Carters. The biggest one was that he wasn't in a relationship, at least not a physical one, with his Carter. But the more he thought about it, the more it felt like he'd be cheating on her if he let the other Carter touch him again. "And we don't do this sort of thing."

She looked disappointed. "It's one thing to deny it to people who only suspect, Jack. But I know how much you want me." She smiled suddenly. "You've told me. You've woken the neighbors and told them too."

He never would have imagined Carter saying such a thing to him, but it would follow that intimacy would relieve them of the embarrassment of admitting they wanted to be together. He met her eyes and held his ground, deciding that he could be honest since it wasn't really his reality. "I didn't say I don't want her." He sighed, wishing once again that he was alternate Jack. "I just don't have her."

"Do something about it. She won't say no."

"You don't know that." He did not want relationship counseling from Carter, his or any other. He didn't want relationship counseling from anyone.

"Five weeks, Jack. I didn't feel any differently about you five weeks ago. I was just less likely to attack you in the locker room."

He laughed. "Thank goodness for small favors." He caught her raised eyebrow. "I think."

"I miss my Jack. He's so much more fun."

"A minute ago you were telling me I was just like your Jack." He loved it when he could point out Carter's mistakes. He just wasn't sure it had ever happened before.

"You are like him, except that he's perhaps a bit more adventurous than you are." The twinkle in her eye made him wonder exactly what sorts of things might be able to convince his Carter to try.

Of course, he'd be happy to simply see his Carter again. "So how did this happen? How come he's not here?"

"Quantum mirrors aren't actually mirrors. They don't have reflections. When you looked in the mirror, that wasn't you. That was him." Her eyes glazed over with that possessed look she always got when she was theorizing. "You must have both touched the mirror simultaneously or else you would have had contact with each other. It's just more evidence of how close the realities truly are. We were on the same mission. You both sent Teal'c with Daniel and chose to stay with me, albeit probably for different reasons. You were both looking in the mirror at exactly the same time. You must have even reached out at exactly the same time or you would have noticed that the reflection wasn't of you." Her eyes were dancing and Jack found himself wondering if anything besides quantum theory could make her so happy. "With the infinite number of realities in existence, any of which could have met up, it's an amazing coincidence that they're so close!"

Jack looked at her, thinking he'd quite possibly lost his mind since he understood her. "But aren't there also an infinite number of realities that are as close as ours?"

She grinned. "That means there's an infinite number of times that we can be together."

Jack felt slightly sick at the thought that although their realities were close, they were still very different. "It also means there's an infinite number of times that we can't be."

"That's up to you, Jack."

He was silent as he wondered if he could make that leap. Obviously, in some way, he had and it seemed to be ok. Even if he did wind up in the brig, five weeks of being happy and making Carter happy would be worth it. He thought about the other Jack, the one who'd had the nerve to do it. He thought about his Carter, the one who apparently had it in her to break the rules to be with him.

And then he realized that his Carter, who hadn't broken the rules, was in his reality, with the Jack who was probably every bit as bold as alternate Carter regarding their five week old relationship. If alternate Jack tried any of the things alternate Carter had, his Carter would probably have him up on charges.

"I have to get home."

"Don't tell me you're still afraid of me."

"No, but my Carter might be afraid of your Jack." It also occurred to him that she might be as willing to throw caution to the wind as alternate Carter had been, but that thought left him sick to his stomach.

Carter's eyes clouded over. "That would be very bad."

"Why?" He was willing to bet she had more information that he wouldn't like.

"Well, my Teal'c and Daniel and Janet and General Hammond know about us unofficially. I'm guessing yours don't."

Jack closed his eyes and let out a whine. It could, in fact, be very bad in many different ways.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

If the general was alarmed by seeing Carter so truly fearful of her CO, he didn't show it. He calmly suggested they all sit down and talk. Carter sandwiched herself between Daniel and Teal'c, leaving Jack to sit alone opposite them. He stared at Carter the entire time, heat and confusion and anger and hurt mixing together in his eyes. She couldn't look at him, because he looked like Jack and she wanted to comfort him. Se had to keep reminding herself that it wasn't him to keep herself from jumping to his defense and saying the whole thing was a misunderstanding. Carter reminded herself that it was exactly what the imposter wanted.

The general cleared his throat. "Colonel, it has been brought to my attention that you've been exhibiting some uncharacteristic behavior since you were on 679. Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

Jack glared at Carter's profile, which she kept stubbornly turned away. "There's nothing wrong with me, sir. I'm sure Dr. Fraiser will attest to that. Major Carter, on the other hand, is having disconcerting memory lapses."

Carter's eyes widened as the general turned on her. "Sri, I can't possibly be expected to remember the Colonel's delusions."

Jack's fists slammed into the conference table, causing Carter to look at him in shock. His eyes focused on hers, not caring who else was there. "You want to stick with that line, Carter? You want to end it?" His face grew even angrier as he held her eyes. "Fine, it's over, Carter. Don't worry; I won't ever touch you again."

Carter's face burned in anger and embarrassment. Her eyes darted to the general. She didn't want to be crushed by his words, but once she'd discovered how great it felt when he touched her, she didn't want to lose that contact. "General, this is exactly when I'm talking about regarding his behavior." Her eyes pleaded for the general's belief. "He keeps talking about a relationship we don't have."

Hammond looked back and forth between the two. It was obvious that Jack's vehement anger seemed to hold a grain of truth as he looked at them. He was just an angry as Jack, having been dragged unwillingly into a private matter. "Colonel, I'm going to strongly suggest that you rethink anymore mention of your personal relationship with Major Carter."

Jack turned to him, his eyes dark and his face scowling. "Major Carter and I don't have personal relationship, sir." His eyes turned back to Carter. "Problem solved."

His words stabbed through her like a knife. No, she knew there was technically no existing non-work relationship, but she'd always felt that something was there, flowing between them, whether they chose to acknowledge it or not and that something also always held the promise that there could be something more in the future if they did choose to acknowledge it. The harsh tone of his words made her think that there was never going to be anything more. She shook her head, telling herself that it wasn't Jack who had said it was over. Her eyes still were cast downward, though, not wanting to see anymore anger in the eyes of the man she loved, even if it wasn't really him.

Hammond turned toward Carter, choosing to ignore the more inappropriate subject matter. "Major Carter, when did you notice the colonel's behavior changed?"

She took a moment, gathering her thoughts together. No matter what was going on with Jack, she knew she would have no such excuses. Her words had to be carefully selected because there was no taking them back. She took a deep breath and realized that she couldn't pick an exact moment when he seemed different. She couldn't answer the question exactly. "The colonel was fine this morning, both during the briefing-" Her cheeks flushed slightly at the memory of the heated stare she'd shared with Jack at that very conference table. "And during the mission. He was in a good mood. Daniel wanted to investigate the area outside the complex, so the colonel sent Teal'c with him. The colonel stayed with me to check out the lab." She dared to glance up and was actually disconcerted to see Jack nodding in agreement. It would have been so much easier to prove that something was wrong with him if he disputed something that Daniel or Teal'c could verify.

She looked away again, regrouping. "I was analyzing the device we wound up bring back with us. The colonel left while I was taking it apart. I didn't actually notice him leave because I was concentrating on what I was doing. When he returned, he said he'd told me he was leaving, but I hadn't heard him." She paused again, vividly recalling the way his hands had felt on her hips. Even under the circumstances and despite how much she wanted to say something had obviously happened to him when he was out of her sight, she still firmly believed that had been Jack, her Jack. The way he'd flirted with her had been outrageous, but not particularly out of character for him. There had been occasional moments like that between them over the years. And it had certainly been in keeping with the way he'd been acting for the previous few days. "He was still acting like himself at that point, sir." She offered the general half a smile. "He was joking with me about not noticing when he left the room." The general nodded, listening intently to her side of the story.

She dared another glance at Jack, who was shaking his head and frowning. "That's not true, Carter, and you know it."

The general held up his hand. "Colonel, I'll get your side of the story in a moment." He turned to Carter. "Please continue, Major."

"He was walking around the lab while I was working. At one point he dropped something, but it didn't seem to cause any damage and it didn't have any effect on the colonel." She stopped again, carefully reviewing the time in her mind. She'd joked with him about breaking things, but he'd responded in kind. "It wasn't long after that when he seemed angry for no reason. He wanted to know if I had been able to activate the device after he had given me strict instructions not to turn it on. When I pointed that out, he said I had two minutes before we were leaving. When he called Teal'c and Daniel back and they were as surprised as I was at his hurry to return."

General Hammond nodded thoughtfully. "Colonel, your turn. Where does your account differ from Major Carter's?"

"Start at the beginning. I was not in a good mood this morning. Carter hasn't spoken to me for two solid days and I'm sure you all remember that quite clearly since, according to your own words at the start of the mission this morning, we weren't doing a very good job of even pretending to get along."

Carter, having no recollection of that, looked to the general. His brow was furrowed. "I'm going to have to side with Major Carter on this point, Jack. You two actually seemed to be getting on quite well in the briefing this morning." His cheeks stained red. "A little too well for my tastes, actually."

Carter looked down. He could have said plenty more, considering the subject, and she was thankful for that, but she was mortified that the general had noticed her blatant flirting with her CO. She took comfort in the fact that he had agreed with her.

Jack shrugged. "We went through the gate. I sent Teal'c off with Daniel because I didn't think they should be saddled with Major Carter's pissy mood."

Carter glared at him, witnesses or not. "You're the one having the mood swings, sir."

"That's the pot calling the kettle black, now isn't it, Carter?" His face took on an annoyed expression as he glanced at the general, as though he was too important to have to deal with a conversation that was so far below him. "I supervised Carter's work in the lab, while she was attempting to determine if the device was actually a power source. I fully expected her to activate the device, if she was able to. We had no intention of staying a long time. Once Daniel recognized the writings-"

"Uh, Jack, I knew they looked familiar, but I never did figure out why."

"Yes, Daniel, you did. You said they were a lot like those ones from that other planet."

Daniel, Sam and Teal'c exchanged glances. Daniel eventually spoke up. "Which other planet, Jack?"

"You know, the one with the funky alternate reality place."

"233! I knew it looked familiar! I just couldn't place it!" Daniel looked absolutely gleeful.

Carter's stomach did a little flip. "There was a mirror in the lab." She felt everyone's eyes fix on her. "It didn't look like a quantum mirror, but if it was inhabited by the same race of people and it was a science lab of some sort."

Jack's anger seemed to fade the slightest bit. "Yea, I remember the mirror."

"Did you touch the mirror, sir?"

He winced slightly. "If it was one of those quantum things, why aren't there two of me here?"

Carter noticed he hadn't answered her question, which she took as an admission of guilt. "Did you notice anything strange about the mirror, sir?"

"Besides that I appeared to have just gotten my hair cut which I certainly haven't done since you mentioned you like it when it's long."

Carter's mouth dropped open. She couldn't believe he would say that to a room full of people. She was suddenly very glad, provided her assumption was right about what had happened, that the man before he was not her Jack. Since she was banking on her idea being correct, she decided there was nothing wrong with lying. "That's not true."

Jack grinned maliciously. "Sure it is. You told me a few minutes ago in the locker room. I'm sure you remember what we were doing."

Her face burned red in embarrassment; her eyes flashed in anger. Her hands were shaking. She wanted to kill him.

Luckily, Teal'c came to her defense. "General Hammond, I believe this is not O'Neill. O'Neill would never make such a statement, even in jest, regarding Major Carter."

Carter took a deep breath and waded back into the argument. "This is Colonel O'Neill. It's just not the right one."

Daniel shifted his chair a little closer to Carter's in a show of support. "He's obviously from an alternate reality where Jack is a jerk."

Carter wanted to nod, but she didn't. "Unfortunately, he's from another reality that's not too far away from ours. I think, judging from the things he was saying, however, that perhaps in his reality, he's having some personal problems."

General Hammond only looked marginally pleased that they seemed to have arrived at a consensus of what had happened. "It was my understanding that visitors from other realities experienced some sort of medical problems."

Carter nodded. "Yes, sir, if both Colonel O'Neill's were here, this one would experience entropic cascade failure. In this instance, however, due to the colonel's report of a reflection in the mirror, I believe the colonel's switched places." She looked up and noticed Jack looking around, as though looking for evidence that she was speaking the truth. "Hopefully, we only have to return to the planet and switch them back."

Jack looked up and met her eyes. "So my iris code should work there, right?"

"Right."

General Hammond nodded. "Then you're going back, first thing in the morning." He stood up and headed for his office, but he turned back halfway across the room and looked at Jack. "You don't need to be placed under guard, do you?"

"No, sir." He glanced across the table at Carter. "There's no chance in hell I'm going near the ice queen over there." There was the slightest hint of mirth in his eyes as he spoke that only Carter could see.

She tried to hold a straight face, but she couldn't keep an amused grin off her lips. "That's ok, sir, you'll be home in plenty of time for Beth's wedding."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "Yeah, I pretty much already knew that when she stopped speaking to me over it."

As soon as the general ducked back into his office, Daniel and Teal'c made their excuses. Jack and Carter were left staring at one another from opposite sides of the table.

"So." Jack winced, running his hands along his face. "Sorry about all that, Carter."

Carter bit her lip. "Yeah, me too."

"I guess you and your Jack never…"

"No." She shook her head sharply, as uncomfortable discussing the topic with him when they were alone as she had been when there was a room full of people. She thought it was odd considering what she'd been doing with him earlier, but she blamed it on the fact that she knew it wasn't really him.

He looked down and Carter watched as an obviously irrepressible smile spread across his face. "You - uh - my Carter, I guess, got a flat tire a few weeks ago."

Carter's newly relaxed feeling coiled into a knot of dread in her stomach. "I had a flat a few weeks ago, sir. You gave me a ride home."

His eyes darted up to hers. "Then how is this reality different from mine?"

"You were telling me how you and your Carter wound up - uh - how she became your Carter, I guess. What does that have to do with my flat tire, sir?" She didn't know how something romantic had come out of that ride he'd given her, especially with the way he'd blatantly ignored her the entire trip and then hightailed it away from her house before she could mention that she'd need a ride back to her car.

"Well, I was hungry and you were already in the truck, so I invited you to join me for dinner and somewhere in the middle of sharing dessert we realized that it would appear to most people that we were on a date." He smiled again, recalling something Carter had no recollection of sharing with him. "And after I heard you moan over how good the cake was it became my personal mission to make you moan like that again." His eyes were dark once again, but it wasn't from anger.

A chill went through Carter and she had to acknowledge that she was very jealous of the other her, even more so than she had been of the alternate Sam they'd met years earlier. That Sam had been married to Jack, but she'd been a very different Sam and she was sure he'd been a very different Jack and he was very dead, so it limited how jealous she could be, even when she'd watched the other Sam kiss her Jack. In the current situation, the alternate Carter and Jack were extremely close to the real ones. She didn't like the idea of the alternate Carter, who was obviously much like herself, being with her Jack. She shrugged at Jack, who was still looking very interested, even though she knew he was imagining she was his Carter. "My Jack didn't ask me to dinner. He dropped me off and went home."

Jack smiled a warm, friendly smile that Carter knew well. "If you tell him you'll moan over chocolate cake, he'll take you anywhere you want to go." He winked as he got up from the table. "Even family weddings."


	10. Chapter 10

_AN:I tried and tried, but I've decided that I can't possibly make the end fit here, so there's one more part after this. Enjoy!_

Chapter Ten

Jack and Carter made it to General Hammond's office just as Janet was arriving. She looked unduly relieved when she met them in the hallway and Jack got the distinct impression that she'd been dawdling in the hall for quite a while.

"I'm hoping you've changed your mind, sir."

Jack wasn't sure how the understanding of their relationship had made it, even unofficially, to General Hammond, but he was pretty sure no one, including Janet, wanted to be the one to make mention of it officially. In fact, he got the idea that keeping it unofficial was the only way to keep them out of trouble.

He was tempted, very much so, to ask the general - the alternate one - how he would recommend broaching the conversation with his General Hammond, but he suspected that would get alternate Carter and Jack in trouble and he had no desire to get them in trouble. He figured it would be good karma and hoped the Jack in his reality wouldn't make trouble for him and his Carter. Besides, scary as she was compared to his Carter, he liked alternate Carter. And he liked that she wasn't that far removed from his Carter.

Jack smiled at Janet. "Hi, I'm Jack." He held out his hand as if to shake hers. Janet looked alarmed, probably thinking Jack's memory loss had gotten worse. "I'm just visiting your lovely establishment from an alternate reality."

Janet's eyes widened and she glanced to Carter for verification. "Really?"

Carter nodded. "A very similar, yet simultaneously very different reality. It appears, however, that there's no memory lapse or hallucination involved."

Janet cracked a smile at them. "Anywhere else, you'd get a very strange look for saying that someone's from an alternate reality and that no one's hallucinating in the same sentence."

They knocked on the general's door, each one preparing for a long, drawn-out argument which would involved Jack and Carter hedging about exactly how they'd arrived at the conclusion that Jack was from another reality, albeit one that was very close to the one they were in. Hammond was unexpectedly pleased to hear that they were an explanation, however far-fetched, for the unprofessional behavior he'd witnessed.

He glanced between Jack and Carter. "Of course, this doesn't explain yesterday morning, does it?"

"Sir?" Jack had no idea what the general was talking about. He looked at Carter, who had ducked her head and was blushing furiously.

"Major Carter and the other Colonel O'Neill were having some personal issues. I had to remind them that personal issues have no place in a professional setting."

Carter looked up, a mask of utter professionalism covering her embarrassment. "It won't happen again, sir."

"It had damn well better not, Major."

Carter ducked her chin, wincing at the usually friendly man's harsh words. "Yes, sir."

Jack had to bite his tongue to keep from defending her. Whatever was going on, he knew it had something to do with the wedding and he was sure it was entirely Jack's fault. But he couldn't say anything because he suspected the phenomenal tolerance Hammond had toward their relationship had a lot to do with a promise, spoken or unspoken, that it would not interfere with their work. He caught Carter's eye and offered her a reassuring smile.

"Gather the rest of your team, Major, and prepare to leave immediately." He glanced at Jack for a moment before looking back at Carter. "Is he a security risk?"

"No more than ours is, sir."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I'll trust you on that. I'm sure you'd know before the rest of us."

Jack watched Carter bury her face in her hands. He nudged her with his elbow, waiting for her to look up. When she did, he winked at her, causing her to blush deeper.

As soon as the general turned away, Carter slugged Jack.

"Hey, you can't hit me!"

Carter grinned. "You're not my CO." Then she winked at him before leaving to find her teammates for their mission.

After being briefed on the situation Daniel and Teal'c met Jack in the locker room. He grinned involuntarily as he looked around, knowing he'd always feel differently about the locker room from then on. He'd always remember the way Carter had launched herself at him.

His humor was short-lived, however, as he stared at his locker. He couldn't recall exactly what he'd touched - which things were from his reality and which belonged exactly where they were. He didn't want to take any of the other Jack's things by accident, but he didn't want to leave any of his behind - it wasn't like he could come back for them later.

He figured the uniform wouldn't really matter as he pulled on a jacket. Reaching into the pocket, he discovered a wadded up piece of paper - a to do list he'd made a few weeks earlier. He felt strange looking at it because he had the same one at home, but different things were scratched off it. The one that caught his eye was the first item on the list: get a hair cut. On his list at home, Jack knew that was checked off. On the list in his hand, however, it was still there, with a note next to it in Carter's barely legible, instantly recognizable scrawl that said 'never, ever.'

Jack grinned and left the note on the shelf, knowing the other Jack would want it. It wasn't like either one of them was going to get a hair cut any time in the foreseeable future.

The guys met up with Carter at the base of the ramp. Jack couldn't remember a time when he'd seen Carter so eager to go on a mission. It was a little disconcerting to realize that she was that eager to be rid of him until he thought about the flip side - that she was that excited about getting her Jack back, which he took to mean that his Carter was chomping at the bit to have him back. Suddenly just as enthusiastic, he waved at the group in the control room.

"Come on, kids, I want to go home."

Daniel and Teal'c almost seemed to drag their feet as they entered the complex, until Jack realized that he and Carter were racing ahead of what would be considered a normal pace. Teal'c was notably silent, having made his views on alternate realities fairly clear with his statement that his reality was the only one of consequence years earlier. Daniel was more curious, pestering Jack with questions Jack deemed silly in light of the fact that only five weeks separated their lives.

Carter surged ahead and turned into the lab first. When Jack rounded the corner, e saw her leaning across the counter, searching for their counterparts in the mirror. Under any other circumstances, she would have looked ridiculous, bending and twisting while trying to look through a mirror, but Jack couldn't blame her. He wanted to be back where he belonged. There was no one there - only the disturbing reflection of an empty room identical to the one they were in stared back at them.

Carter looked distraught as she glanced at Jack. "What if something happened to him?"

Jack smiled at the obvious concern she was revealing. He didn't think five weeks would make any difference in how worried she was - he loved that Carter cared that much about him. "Maybe they haven't noticed it yet. We can just go over there and clue them in."

"We should give it some time." She turned away from the mirror and leaned on the counter. "Our codes won't be valid there and yours might have been changed. Besides, I don't want to chance entropic cascade failure unless we have to."

Jack waited next to her, trying not to let Carter's continual nervous gaze over her shoulder at the mirror make him nervous too. "Plus it could get really confusing with eight of us."

Carter turned back to him with a playful wink and a seductive grin. "I could have some fun with two of you around."

"You're just trying to freak me out."

She grinned. "Yeah, I'll give you that." She peeked over her shoulder again, straightening up immediately. "Look who's here."

It was with trepidation that Jack pushed away from the counter and walked around to stand next to Carter. Coming through the door of the other lab, Carter - his Carter - looked as anxious as he felt. He watched the emotions play on her face, noting happily that her first instinct was to smile at him before she turned to alert her team of the discovery. He smiled back like an idiot. She was there, only a few feet away from him, and although he had only just realized it, he'd missed her terribly. Ever since the argument with alternate Carter over the device she'd activated, including her seductive attempts, he'd wanted her to be back to normal - he'd wanted his Carter and he hadn't even known it.

Jack watched as his alternate smiled broadly at Carter and patted her on the back. He stepped up the mirror, squinting through it to see what was happening on the other side. Carter stood off to the side, favoring one of her legs and awaiting the switch. She hadn't been injured when he left.

Jack glanced at the Carter beside him, trying to cover his nerves with his jovial tone. "So, we're sure they're the right other Jack and Carter, right?"

Carter looked at him and winced. "Well, sir, with all the decisions that have been made since you've been here, there are about a million more realities than there were when you switched. Therefore it would be impossible for you to go back to the exact same reality you came from since it no longer exists." She smiled reassuringly. "But the mirror doesn't appear to have switched channels and there's a pair of us on the other side who appear to be in a similar situation to ours."

Horrified, Jack glanced between alternate Carter and possibly second-alternate Jack. "So you can't even be sure you're sending me home? That might not be your boyfriend over there."

Carter shrugged half-heartedly and Jack noticed that she was sharing a heated stare with the other Jack. "I'm afraid close is the best we can do scientifically."

"Close?" Jack amazed himself once again with his Peter Brady imitation.

"The lines start to blur when you're dealing with interactions of molecules whose interactions are physically impossible."

Jack cocked his head to the side and saw through the technobabble for once. "So, you have no clue and you're just making this up as you go along, right?"

"I do a pretty good job of it, don't I?" She grinned cheekily. "And hey, don't tell my Jack that, ok?"

Shaking his head, he offered a wave to the alternate Daniel and Teal'c. Then he squared his shoulders and reached forward, watching the reflection that wasn't him do the same.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

As she watched Jack place his hand on the mirror, Carter became very nervous that it wouldn't be her Jack that came back. Ostensibly she knew here was no way to untangle the mess of which Jack belonged in which reality. Accuracy was her security blanket and the thought that she was trusting anything so imprecise as the mirror to return her Jack upset her. She much preferred to be in control of things. She was better with absolutes.

Just like the switch the previous day, there was almost no perceptible change. Even though she was watching while it happened, the only way she knew it had worked was because of his hair. She grimaced involuntarily as the short cut as he turned around to face her.

"Carter?"

"Yes, sir?"

Jack glanced over his shoulder, checking the mirror for any signs that it had worked. Instead of reflecting his confusion, the mirror revealed alternate Jack and Carter already locked in an embrace that gave him the impression their separation had been much longer than twelve hours. He recalled that alternate Carter had been freezing alternate Jack out for two days prior and it seemed to make more sense, but it still seemed a little excessive. They were technically working, after all.

He shrugged and turned back to Carter, remembering her alternate's words about never actually getting back exactly where he'd been. "My Carter?" At her befuddled expression, he decided to rephrase his question. "We're not…"

She smiled as she relaxed, seeing the anxiety on Jack's face over even having to vocalize that much. "No, sir."

He grinned. "Good, then apparently I'm home."

Carter smiled harder, refusing to acknowledge the thrill that ran through her veins. "Yes, sir. Very good." Her eyes shifted to the mirror for a moment, thoroughly mortified to see that the other Jack and Carter had yet to come up for air.

Seeing her embarrassment, Jack took another peek himself. "Ok, if he gets that, don't I at least get a hug?"

Carter's eyes widened as she checked to see if Daniel and Teal'c were still there. They were, but it was somehow less embarrassing to meet their eyes. Carter decided it was because they were equally unsure as to how serious Jack's question was. Apparently they decided there was a fairly good chance he wasn't kidding because they glanced at each other and ducked out of the lab.

Carter narrowed her eyes at the empty space they'd once occupied and vowed she would get even with them for abandoning her. With nothing to distract her, she turned back to Jack with no idea of how to answer him. She didn't want to make a fool of herself if he was only joking, but she didn't want to turn him down if he was serious.

She took a deep breath and tried to walk a very narrow, completely ambiguous line. "As inviting as they might sound, sir, I'm not sure it's the most appropriate thing to do under the circumstances." Her glance darted up to meet his.

He smiled and inclined his head toward the other couple. "If you consider the other option, a hug really isn't so bad, is it?"

Carter met his stare again, emboldened by the idea that he wasn't kidding. She crooked her eyebrow, pretending not to know what he was talking about. "And what is the other option, sir?"

He held her gaze, his smile growing wider. "Come here." She seemed receptive so he saw no reason to let the chance escape him.

She wanted to squeal with delight. He really wasn't kidding. Needing no more encouragement, Carter stepped forward. Her arms reached up over his shoulders as his arms folded around her. The sensation of being in his arms was overwhelming, as it had been each of the few times he'd ever held her. She wanted to turn her face into his neck and let down her guard. She wanted to cling to him forever. She knew she could rely on his strength.

Jack was never much for affection - verbal or physical. Most of the time, he wasn't able to open himself up enough to admit to caring about people. He trusted that the people he loved simply understood that he wasn't as capable as most when it came to talking about his feelings. He'd spent too many years being tough to allow himself to show weakness. But it was one of those rare times when he felt secure enough to open up. He knew Carter would never hurt him or reveal that he could be soft.

He pressed his face against her neck, inhaling the scent of her so close. "I missed you, Carter."

She grinned, recognizing the trust he was placing in her and not wanting to make him feel vulnerable. "You probably didn't even know it wasn't me."

He didn't let go, trying to stretch out the moment. "I knew something wasn't right."

Carter pulled back slightly, her eyes widening. "What was wrong, sir?"

He grinned. "I didn't say anything was wrong. I just said it wasn't right."

"Never mind. I don't think I really want to know." Once she remembered how she'd realized something was wrong with Jack - when Jack has come on to her - she didn't want to give him the chance to tease her.

Jack grinned, desperate to prolong any conversation that kept Carter in his arms. There was something in the way she'd backed down so quickly that was distinctly unlike her. "Are you sure, Carter? I don't mind rehashing it."

She ducked in embarrassment, knowing without question that he'd figured it out the same way she had. But in her haste to hide her red cheeks, she forgot how close they were. Rather than saving face, she only drew attention to herself by inadvertently burying her face in his chest.

Jack misread her mistake and thought she was seeking reassurance. His arms tightened around her and he bent down to whisper in her ear. "Hey, it's ok. I was kidding."

She would have been even more embarrassed if not for the warm and welcoming response he'd offered. Unconsciously, she snuggled closer to him. His hands left her back, moving to cradle her face. He guided her chin up until he could look in her eyes. It was amazing to him that he saw no reproach there.

He nodded toward the mirror without taking his eyes off hers. "Maybe that's not so inappropriate after all."

She wanted to take him up on it. Like always, close proximity to Jack stripped all of her defenses away. But she'd always prided herself on her professionalism and she had to hold herself to the same standards she always did. Otherwise, she'd hate herself for it and be ashamed of what she'd done. She leaned back slightly, knowing the small movement would be felt with the way his hands were on her face. "We're working, sir."

She saw the indecision in his eyes. She saw the recognition in his eyes as well - he could see the desire in her eyes and he knew she wouldn't be the slightest bit offended if he kissed her anyway. At the very least, she would be absolved of making the decision to break the rules. And despite the idea that had obviously occurred to him, he followed the rules and her decree. He didn't want her to think less of him for giving in to something so personal while they were working.

"You're right. Like always." He sighed and nodded as he stepped back to put ample space between them. "But at least I got my hug."

Carter grinned and walked toward the door. "You certainly did."

"And it was a very nice hug." He couldn't seem to stop smiling.

But then, it appeared Carter was having the same trouble controlling her smile. "Yes, sir, very nice."

"We'll have to do that again soon."

She looked at him, a feeling like electricity running through her at the idea. "Any time, sir."

"I have every intention of taking you up on that." Actually, Jack was fighting the urge to suggest it right then.

Her eyes sparkled when she looked up at him. "I hope you do." She continued walking, ready to head back home with a report of a successful mission.

"You're sure this is my reality, right?"

Carter shrugged noncommittally. "As sure as I can be, sir."

"For the record, Carter, when I'm obviously asking for reassurance, I expect an emphatic yes, ok?"

She grinned. "Yes, sir."

"So, you're sure this is my reality, right?" Jack expected exasperation, but Carter was still grinning. Probably because he was still grinning. All because he'd almost kissed her. He wondered how unbearably happy they would be if they actually kissed and Carter remembered it. He decided they would be disgustingly so, because when he'd kissed her during the time loop, he'd been smiling for days, raising a lot of questions from Carter.

Carter just kept beaming at him. "Absolutely, sir."

He nodded. "That's more like it." He kept his pace slow so Carter could keep up while she pretended not to limp. "So what happened to your leg?" When Carter didn't immediately answer, he glanced at her, seeing a blush working its way across her face.

"Nothing, sir."

"Just thought you'd try a limp out and see how you like it?" He knew there was a story there, if based only on the idea that Carter clearly didn't want to tell him. "Come on, Carter, what happened?"

She squeezed her eyes closed and willed herself to disappear. When that failed, she tried taking a normal step without limping, but that hurt her knee so much she nearly cried. "I tripped."

Jack pondered her words for a moment. "You're not exactly uncoordinated, Carter. How'd you manage that?"

Her mind raced to spit out details that wouldn't reveal too much. "I wasn't looking where I was going and I didn't see the bench until I fell over it."

"What bench?" The story she was giving him didn't seem back enough for Carter to dread telling it, so Jack knew there was more to it. She was hiding something.

"The one in the locker room." Her face burned as she looked for a place to hide.

"What were you looking at that distracted you that much?" He'd spent so much time in the locker room over the years that he could navigate it blindfolded without tripping over the bench. He was sure Carter could do the same.

"To be honest, sir, I had just come to the conclusion that the Colonel O'Neill with me wasn't you, so I was trying to get away from him without turning my back. I didn't know it was only an alternate reality you, so I didn't know he could be trusted."

"Oh, that makes sense." He watched her carefully, seeing the moment she relaxed. Then he pounced. "What were you and Jack doing in the same locker room?"

She hid her face behind her hands. "Please leave me alone!"

He couldn't leave well enough alone. He enjoyed teasing her too much. "I'm really curious because the other Carter had some very interesting ideas of what we could do in the locker room."

_AN: This is not the end. There's another part coming. I was planning on finishing the whole thing with a long Chapter 11, but my aunt has been terribly sick and I'm spending most of my time either at work or at the hospital. In fact, I haven't seen any new Stargate eps yet because I haven't had time. Chapter 12 will be the end and hopefully it will be up in the next few days. Please R&R!_


	12. Chapter 12

_AN: Since you've been patient, I decided to include the epilogue with this last chapter. Enjoy!_

Chapter Twelve

Carter dropped her hands and stopped walking, anger overtaking her humiliation. "You're lying! I would never!" But even as she stared at Jack, her outrage faded into mortified acceptance. If she was in an intimate, committed relationship with Jack, the way alternate Jack had insinuated, she knew she would have no qualms with flirting and making suggestive remarks to him when they were alone. Although, if alternate Jack had been any indication, alternate Carter most likely tried more than simply suggesting something. She recalled the way alternate Jack had touched her with every intention of taking it all the way. Her heart skipped a beat.

She turned on Jack in fear and hurt and anger. "You didn't. Tell me you didn't." She stared at him, unexpectedly crushed by the thought that he'd slept with, well, her. She told herself it was because she would have thought he'd known her well enough to know it wasn't her, no matter how close the other reality might have been.

He played innocent at her shocked expression. "Didn't what?"

Carter couldn't tell if he was being serious or if he really didn't know what she was talking about and she knew her own emotions, which couldn't choose between hatred and jealousy at the other her, had a lot to do with her inability to read him. "Please tell me you didn't have sex with her. Please."

"Of course I didn't, Carter. That would be in gross violation of regulations." He tried his best to look insulted, but he couldn't be sure that she was falling for it. "Why on earth would you think that?"

She was flustered - so much so that she failed entirely to see that was exactly his point. "But you said she had ideas and the locker room and -" She stopped talking abruptly when she realized that Jack could barely contain his laughter. She wanted to be mad, but it was impossible in the face of Jack's obvious amusement. "Jerk."

She turned away, her own words reminding her of the day before when they'd been flirting in the same shameless manner. The memory was vivid, so vivid she could almost feel his hands on her hips and his breath on her ear.

And then she realized it wasn't just a memory. His hands were on her hips and his mouth was once again against her ear. She shivered at the intimate contact.

"You don't really think I'm a jerk, do you?"

She leaned back, feeling the warmth of his body cradling her. She'd never been so tempted to forget entirely about her job and her commission and the regulations surrounding both. She turned her face toward his slightly. "Not at all, although this is hardly the place for such a discussion."

He turned his face so that his lips just grazed her ear as he spoke. "You might have to keep reminding me of that."

He withdrew immediately, the cold void left behind reminding her how much she wished she didn't have to remind him. She tried to recover her sense of duty, but she pretty sure Jack had accidentally taken it with him when he stepped back. "Daniel and Teal'c are probably wondering where we are." Her voice was half hearted and surprisingly, she saw understanding rather than reluctance in Jack's eyes.

"The sooner we get home, the sooner we can be not working, right?" He'd just had a glimpse of what life could be like with Carter and he sensed a lot less resistance from Carter than he ever had. He wasn't about to let another chance slip by. Some other Jack in some other reality could make that mistake.

They caught up with Daniel and Teal'c by the gate. Teal'c dialed home at Jack's request. Daniel kept a careful eye on the pair while pretending he wasn't. The attention didn't go unnoticed by Jack, although the older man tried to ignore it as long as he could.

"What, Daniel?" His voice revealed the frustration he felt at not being able to kiss Carter despite how evident it was to him finally that she was just as willing as he was.

Daniel winced at the harsh tone and fixed his eyes on Carter. "And we're sure he's the right one?" Carter nodded. "Because the other one was acting all mean when he got here too."

Carter smiled reassuringly. "It's him, Daniel." She knew, even though she'd thought otherwise at one point when she'd first realized that alternate Jack wasn't her Jack, that no one could flirt with her like her Jack.

Daniel glanced warily at Jack again before shrugging and turning back to Carter. "I owe you an apology." He checked on Jack, trying to make sure Jack wasn't getting angry. Daniel knew that apologizing to Carter in front of Jack was akin to painting a target on his chest. Jack got mad when people did anything to Carter that required an apology.

Carter's eyes darted to Jack as well, but not in fear for Daniel. She was afraid Daniel was going to say something that might embarrass her and, truth be told, she'd had about as much embarrassment as she could take for one day. "For what?" She tried to warn him off with her eyes, but Daniel, as usual, didn't quite know what to make of her expression.

"For yesterday. You told me that you and Jack weren't involved and I took his word over yours." Daniel paused, looking confused. "But he wasn't lying either. He was just the wrong Jack." He shook his head. "Anyway, I'm sorry I was angry at you for lying to me since you weren't lying."

Carter smiled wider than she needed, partly in appreciation for Daniel not mortifying her, but mostly because over Daniel's shoulder, she could see Jack's eyes had darkened with a look she took to mean her previously accurate statement about them not being involved was not going to be true for much longer. "Thanks, Daniel."

Daniel noticed the odd, distracted look from Carter and turned to check with Jack. He felt more than a little silly when he realized that Carter and Jack were staring at each other with heated glances and only barely even noticed he was still there. Annoyed, he cleared his throat and shifted into Carter's line of sight. It amused him to see the slightly disoriented look cross her face as she remembered where she was. "You would tell me, right?"

Her face burned from the heat of Jack's stare, but that only led to her being further embarrassed from her obvious reaction. "There's nothing to tell, Daniel."

Daniel shrugged, unconvinced by her words. He knew something was in the works. He stepped up to Teal'c's side and then entered the wormhole together.

Jack winked at Carter as they followed their teammates. "We're going to have to tell him, Carter. It'll hurt his feeling if we don't."

Carter gave him her best wide-eyed innocent face. "There's nothing to tell him, sir."

Jack smiled. "Yet." He was still smiling when they emerged on the other side, home at the right SGC finally. "But that is so going to change."

Carter recalled Jack's comment about preferring emphatic agreement and grinned at him. "Oh, yes, sir, absolutely."

The medical exam and briefing that followed were interminable, as both tended to be when Jack either wanted desperately to be somewhere else or had endured some injury or alternate reality type event. It seemed even more so than normal because, Jack figured, both circumstances were true for once.

Just as Jack believed the briefing was wrapping up, General Hammond spoke up. "In order to prevent future mix-ups, we're going to need to take some measures to ensure the personnel who come here are, in fact, the personnel who left here. Does anyone have any ideas?"

Jack's forehead creased in consternation. "Isn't that the point of the IDCs, sir?"

Teal'c appeared concerned. "In the future we should simply not allow exceptions if personnel have incorrect codes."

Jack turned to Carter, fearing Teal'c's next suggestion would be to shoot anyone who didn't have the right code. Teal'c's black or white view of reality was more than a little disconcerting to him at the moment.

Carter smiled. "IDCs are only updated every few weeks, allowing a large number of realities that could interact if that is the only safe guard in place."

Jack glared at her and leaned over to give her his best stage whisper. "You're supposed to be on my side."

Carter just smiled at him. "I'm trying to ensure that I'm really on your side and not just anyone who happens to look like you, sir."

Jack's glare shifted to Daniel who'd had the nerve to laugh at Carter's comeback. "So how about passwords whenever we're leaving for a mission?"

Hammond nodded. "That's a good suggestion." He glanced at Carter. "Do you think that would be helpful?"

Carter wiggled uncomfortably in her seat, wishing anyone else ever paid enough attention to get it. "Well, it would narrow down the number of realities because the time during which realities could branch off would be smaller, however, even the act of choosing a password would create multiple additional realities. Not to mention that every decision made following the selection of the password would result in additional realities, all of which would share the same password, which, if allowed to interact, would have little to no hope of ever unraveling." She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. "I think I need to some sleep."

Jack, who'd completely lost any idea of what she was saying about the password thing short of the idea that she didn't seem to like it, picked up on the sleep comment. "Are you ok, Carter?"

"I'm starting to confuse myself, sir."

The general looked upset by that statement. "Perhaps we'll revisit the issue at a later date. Dismissed."

As soon as he was out of hearing range, Carter looked at Jack. "Today's password is don't touch any mirrors."

Carter crashed in her quarters for a few hours and felt much better when she got up. She told herself it wasn't that she was confused, but that it was her attempts to break down the complex idea into parts small enough to explain to others that made her feel confused. Making a silent promise to herself that she was never again going to admit to being confused, she opened the door to head for her lab.

Jack was waiting outside her quarters, leaning against the opposite wall. He'd been too keyed up to sleep and, after bugging the crap out of Daniel and Teal'c for quite a while, he'd decided he would simply wait for Carter to wake up. She looked positively adorable with her hair all disheveled. "Hey, sleepyhead."

She was too happy at the idea that he was actually waiting outside her door to even care how rumpled she was. She just grinned stupidly at him. "Hi."

Jack made a big show of checking his watch. "So, since it's dinner time, I was thinking maybe we could skip the mess and go somewhere nice."

She tried to suppress her smile, but she couldn't. "Do you have somewhere in mind?"

His smile matched hers. "I've heard good things about Giatelli's."

"I hear they've got cake good enough to make me moan."

"That's something I'm just going to have to find out for myself." Jack grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the elevators.

And it turned out, the cake really was that good.

Epilogue

Carter awoke very early the next morning to an incredibly annoying tickle on her cheek. Her eyes blinked open, years of practice being alone making her forget there was someone there to tickle her. But as her eyes met his, she remembered that she was so very happy that she didn't mind if he was being annoying.

"I'm trying to sleep."

He smiled as he leaned down to kiss her lips. "You can go back to sleep in a minute. I need you to help me understand this better."

Shaking off the last remnants of sleep, Carter shifted around to face him. "What?"

Jack, who'd been up thinking about it most of the night, couldn't get his mind off the realities. "Just how many realities are there anyway?"

"There are an infinite number of realities, Jack. Every millisecond that goes by creates infinitely more realities. It's actually incomprehensible. That's how many."

"Even for you?" He pulled her closer, weaving his fingers into her hair.

"Especially for me when someone wakes me up in the middle of the night." She snuggled against his chest, wrapping her arm around him and closing her eyes.

"Carter, please?" He sounded so pathetic that she sat back up and looked at him. "How many?"

"The biggest number you can think of. Squared." She leaned down to kiss him, hoping it would distract him, but he still seemed perplexed. "And then some."

"What's the biggest number you can think of?"

She giggled. "Infinity."

"Is that a number?"

"Go back to bed." She narrowed her eyes, knowing full well that being in bed with him most likely rendered such a glare futile. "Or go home." Of course, she had no intention of letting him leave, but she didn't think that was going to be a problem.

"Carter, please just give me a number and I'll leave you alone."

"Fine. A bajillion. There are a bajillion realities." She snuggled back against him, feeling his arms curl tighter around her.

"Is that a technical term?"

She sat up, yanking the blanket with her as she rolled out of his reach. "It is now."

A moment later she felt him spoon up behind her, snaking his arm around her waist and pulling her flush against him. "Well, I like this reality better than all the other bajillion realities."

Carter grinned into her pillow. "Me too."

Surface.8


End file.
